Opinion
I am writing to express how deeply moved I was by the interview I heard on KPFZ Dec. 15, with Annina van Voorene of Any Positive Change.
It is my belief that the public is woefully uninformed about the benefits of syringe exchange programs, or SEPs.
Drugs that are injected have a higher instance of transmitting HIV, hepatitis C and other diseases, injury to skin and soft tissue, substantial raises in acute and chronic diseases, and death. Injection drug use leads to a high cost of health care that California must bear.
Any Positive Change is doing exactly what its name implies, making small sustainable changes by providing clean safe injection materials to a portion of our community that is often marginalized.
These people who are currently unable due to pain or simply unwilling at this time to stop injecting substances can still be provided with clean materials that reduce sharing and disease transmission with the added benefit of drastically reducing the occurrence of injury, disease and loss of life.
It grieves me deeply that the Lake County Board of Supervisors is not throwing its full support behind a program that the California Public Health Department, or CDPH, and federal government have acknowledged works very well.
It appears that our residents and board members are sadly not aware of the science behind SEPs handing out glassware and any other material that makes substance use safer.
The CDPH has determined that many drugs that are commonly injected — including heroin, fentanyl, and methamphetamine — may also be smoked, which is a significantly less risky mode of consuming.
CDPH has written that the distribution of safer smoking materials may actually stop consumers from injecting and lessen chances of others initiating first time injection use. The availability of safer smoking supplies may reduce the risk of respiratory infections and injuries such as cuts and burns from using damaged pipes.
Sharing pipes or using broken pipes also leads to higher transmission rates of hepatitis C and respiratory infections such as tuberculosis, influenza and SARS-COV-2 that are spread by respiratory droplets.
Lack of access to new pipes is the primary reason drug smokers share pipes and use damaged pipes. People who smoke drugs may also resort to altering and using objects such as soda cans as makeshift pipes. This may introduce additional harmful chemicals from any printing or lining that may be on or in the can. Providing pipes to people who use drugs leads to decreased risks from sharing.
It was three years ago that California amended Health and Safety Code section 121349.1 to allow programs to distribute smoking materials. Why is Lake County so far behind in implementing these lifesaving changes?
I think law enforcement and local government should have been much more respectful of the wonderful service Ms. van Voorene has been providing for close to 30 years. Her service should be invited to every community in our county as her expert voice should be valued as the true expert in this county.
Lake County was one of 220 jurisdictions nationwide which were identified as high risk for HIV/hepatitis C outbreaks. It is high time we quit turning a blind eye to the problems we face.
We must embrace change. If our Board of Supervisors is not educating the public but instead are hampering programs that reduce risk, then I call on the local media and community groups to shine a light on the issue. We must disseminate factual science-based evidence countywide.
Linda Hatfield lives in Finley, California.
It is my belief that the public is woefully uninformed about the benefits of syringe exchange programs, or SEPs.
Drugs that are injected have a higher instance of transmitting HIV, hepatitis C and other diseases, injury to skin and soft tissue, substantial raises in acute and chronic diseases, and death. Injection drug use leads to a high cost of health care that California must bear.
Any Positive Change is doing exactly what its name implies, making small sustainable changes by providing clean safe injection materials to a portion of our community that is often marginalized.
These people who are currently unable due to pain or simply unwilling at this time to stop injecting substances can still be provided with clean materials that reduce sharing and disease transmission with the added benefit of drastically reducing the occurrence of injury, disease and loss of life.
It grieves me deeply that the Lake County Board of Supervisors is not throwing its full support behind a program that the California Public Health Department, or CDPH, and federal government have acknowledged works very well.
It appears that our residents and board members are sadly not aware of the science behind SEPs handing out glassware and any other material that makes substance use safer.
The CDPH has determined that many drugs that are commonly injected — including heroin, fentanyl, and methamphetamine — may also be smoked, which is a significantly less risky mode of consuming.
CDPH has written that the distribution of safer smoking materials may actually stop consumers from injecting and lessen chances of others initiating first time injection use. The availability of safer smoking supplies may reduce the risk of respiratory infections and injuries such as cuts and burns from using damaged pipes.
Sharing pipes or using broken pipes also leads to higher transmission rates of hepatitis C and respiratory infections such as tuberculosis, influenza and SARS-COV-2 that are spread by respiratory droplets.
Lack of access to new pipes is the primary reason drug smokers share pipes and use damaged pipes. People who smoke drugs may also resort to altering and using objects such as soda cans as makeshift pipes. This may introduce additional harmful chemicals from any printing or lining that may be on or in the can. Providing pipes to people who use drugs leads to decreased risks from sharing.
It was three years ago that California amended Health and Safety Code section 121349.1 to allow programs to distribute smoking materials. Why is Lake County so far behind in implementing these lifesaving changes?
I think law enforcement and local government should have been much more respectful of the wonderful service Ms. van Voorene has been providing for close to 30 years. Her service should be invited to every community in our county as her expert voice should be valued as the true expert in this county.
Lake County was one of 220 jurisdictions nationwide which were identified as high risk for HIV/hepatitis C outbreaks. It is high time we quit turning a blind eye to the problems we face.
We must embrace change. If our Board of Supervisors is not educating the public but instead are hampering programs that reduce risk, then I call on the local media and community groups to shine a light on the issue. We must disseminate factual science-based evidence countywide.
Linda Hatfield lives in Finley, California.
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- Written by: Linda Hatfield
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — With the current push and extensive funding available for “brush” clearing I have to point out something that is missing from the conversation.
What is being labeled “brush” is an important and natural plant community called chaparral, and it is unique to California.
It is valuable habitat for numerous wildland creatures, providing shelter, food and nesting habitat for our declining bird populations and mammals.
For some birds like the California thrasher and the wrentit, chaparral is their primary habitat. chaparral is a shrub community composed of many different shrub species, including toyon and old-growth manzanita that provide berries for birds and mammals, and numerous other beautiful native California plants including the blue and white displays of various California lilac (ceanothus) species that cover our hillsides in spring.
The green hills surrounding Clear Lake are mostly carpeted with chaparral. It is what makes Lake County beautiful. It seems like with all the discussion regarding fire safe communities the fact that our chaparral ecosystem is a valuable and unique resource is never mentioned.
Chaparral is not brush or fuel but is an ecosystem unique to California. And it is not indestructible.
Numerous myths abound about chaparral. One being the idea that it is “overgrown,” or “decadent.” These are terms that are not carelessly slapped on other natural systems. Do we talk about old growth redwood forests being “overgrown”?
Old growth is a natural and essential component of chaparral ecosystems, and it is just fine to have stands of old growth chaparral just like in forests and Redwoods. No one speaks of “clearing” redwood forests the way they speak about “clearing brush.”
Let’s look at some facts.
The most effective way to protect lives and communities from wildfire is to focus on making homes fire resistant, reduce flammable materials within 100 feet around them, and prevent developers from placing neighborhoods in harm’s way.
This focus is critical because the most devastating fires in California are wind-driven, casting billions of hot embers miles ahead of the fire front. It’s the wind-driven embers that destroy a majority of communities, not flames from burning shrub lands.
Maintenance of existing fire breaks, maintaining low vegetation along evacuation routes, and focusing on firebreaks near communities are also reasonable approaches. However, completely stripping hillsides of vegetation using masticating and bulldozing is not.
Also, too-frequently burning chaparral will kill it. It is not “meant to burn”; this is a myth that is often promoted about this unique and vulnerable ecosystem.
Lake County’s chaparral represents California’s most extensive and most misunderstood ecosystem. Chaparral can recover from occasional fire, but it is threatened by too much fire.
Also unmentioned is the role of chaparral in climate change. Chaparral plays an important role in carbon sequestration. Does Lake County have a climate change policy that clearly addresses how destruction of natural communities will impact climate change? No, it does not.
Various federal and state agencies have recognized the threat to chaparral: California’s Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment of the state’s terrestrial vegetation predicts chaparral will likely disappear within the next century if current trends continue.
The United States Forest Service established a new leadership intent to protect chaparral in California because human-caused fires have increased fire frequency to the extent that chaparral can no longer survive and is being replaced with non-native annual grasses.
The California Board of Forestry’s Vegetation Treatment Program states that, “coastal sage scrub and chaparral are experiencing fires too frequently resulting in changes to their ecology.”
The California State Legislature amended the Public Resource Code to mandate additional consideration for chaparral plant communities that are being increasingly threatened by fire frequency.
The concern for conservation of chaparral includes acknowledging the critical ecosystem services it provides, especially watershed protection, soil and hillside stabilization, as well as intrinsic value to biodiversity and wildlife habitat.
Vegetation management for the purpose of fire risk reduction should focus on thinning vegetation along evacuation routes, within 100 feet of structures and removing flammable invasive species, which are the primary ladder fuels, to reduce ignitions. Preventing roadside ignitions makes great sense, as this is exactly where many fires start.
Clear cutting, masticating, or excessive burning of chaparral is not a solution. This will create large swaths of unsightly cleared hillsides that will soon revegetate with flammable non-native grasses. These grasses can ignite with a single spark and rapidly carry fire into whatever wildlife habitat is left.
Large cleared open areas also create wind tunnels that can funnel fire at high-speeds, thereby creating wind-driven fires even when the weather is not intrinsically windy.
Please don’t call chaparral “brush” or “fuel”. Call is what it is and recognize it for what it is: an endangered unique California ecosystem that is important for the birds and animals that live here.
Roberta Lyons lives in Lower Lake.
What is being labeled “brush” is an important and natural plant community called chaparral, and it is unique to California.
It is valuable habitat for numerous wildland creatures, providing shelter, food and nesting habitat for our declining bird populations and mammals.
For some birds like the California thrasher and the wrentit, chaparral is their primary habitat. chaparral is a shrub community composed of many different shrub species, including toyon and old-growth manzanita that provide berries for birds and mammals, and numerous other beautiful native California plants including the blue and white displays of various California lilac (ceanothus) species that cover our hillsides in spring.
The green hills surrounding Clear Lake are mostly carpeted with chaparral. It is what makes Lake County beautiful. It seems like with all the discussion regarding fire safe communities the fact that our chaparral ecosystem is a valuable and unique resource is never mentioned.
Chaparral is not brush or fuel but is an ecosystem unique to California. And it is not indestructible.
Numerous myths abound about chaparral. One being the idea that it is “overgrown,” or “decadent.” These are terms that are not carelessly slapped on other natural systems. Do we talk about old growth redwood forests being “overgrown”?
Old growth is a natural and essential component of chaparral ecosystems, and it is just fine to have stands of old growth chaparral just like in forests and Redwoods. No one speaks of “clearing” redwood forests the way they speak about “clearing brush.”
Let’s look at some facts.
The most effective way to protect lives and communities from wildfire is to focus on making homes fire resistant, reduce flammable materials within 100 feet around them, and prevent developers from placing neighborhoods in harm’s way.
This focus is critical because the most devastating fires in California are wind-driven, casting billions of hot embers miles ahead of the fire front. It’s the wind-driven embers that destroy a majority of communities, not flames from burning shrub lands.
Maintenance of existing fire breaks, maintaining low vegetation along evacuation routes, and focusing on firebreaks near communities are also reasonable approaches. However, completely stripping hillsides of vegetation using masticating and bulldozing is not.
Also, too-frequently burning chaparral will kill it. It is not “meant to burn”; this is a myth that is often promoted about this unique and vulnerable ecosystem.
Lake County’s chaparral represents California’s most extensive and most misunderstood ecosystem. Chaparral can recover from occasional fire, but it is threatened by too much fire.
Also unmentioned is the role of chaparral in climate change. Chaparral plays an important role in carbon sequestration. Does Lake County have a climate change policy that clearly addresses how destruction of natural communities will impact climate change? No, it does not.
Various federal and state agencies have recognized the threat to chaparral: California’s Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment of the state’s terrestrial vegetation predicts chaparral will likely disappear within the next century if current trends continue.
The United States Forest Service established a new leadership intent to protect chaparral in California because human-caused fires have increased fire frequency to the extent that chaparral can no longer survive and is being replaced with non-native annual grasses.
The California Board of Forestry’s Vegetation Treatment Program states that, “coastal sage scrub and chaparral are experiencing fires too frequently resulting in changes to their ecology.”
The California State Legislature amended the Public Resource Code to mandate additional consideration for chaparral plant communities that are being increasingly threatened by fire frequency.
The concern for conservation of chaparral includes acknowledging the critical ecosystem services it provides, especially watershed protection, soil and hillside stabilization, as well as intrinsic value to biodiversity and wildlife habitat.
Vegetation management for the purpose of fire risk reduction should focus on thinning vegetation along evacuation routes, within 100 feet of structures and removing flammable invasive species, which are the primary ladder fuels, to reduce ignitions. Preventing roadside ignitions makes great sense, as this is exactly where many fires start.
Clear cutting, masticating, or excessive burning of chaparral is not a solution. This will create large swaths of unsightly cleared hillsides that will soon revegetate with flammable non-native grasses. These grasses can ignite with a single spark and rapidly carry fire into whatever wildlife habitat is left.
Large cleared open areas also create wind tunnels that can funnel fire at high-speeds, thereby creating wind-driven fires even when the weather is not intrinsically windy.
Please don’t call chaparral “brush” or “fuel”. Call is what it is and recognize it for what it is: an endangered unique California ecosystem that is important for the birds and animals that live here.
Roberta Lyons lives in Lower Lake.
- Details
- Written by: Roberta Lyons
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