So it looks like the city of Portland is considering fines and shame to try to encourage city restaurants to meet health standards. Shame on you!

Although in this case I understand some of it is based on complaints and openings, “shoot first and ask questions later” seems to be where the mindset is in this matter.

Additional Photos

The Porthole, which closed after health code violations were found there and then briefly reopened, is now closed indefinitely for renovations. 2012 File Photo/Gabe Souza

If a high school or college instructor gives a test and nearly 80 percent of the students fail, something is most certainly wrong, and it is not necessarily the students who took the test. Maybe the city fathers should look to the regulations themselves and most certainly to the inspector who failed the 80 percent.

In addition, you may also want to look into why this one inspector only inspected 49 restaurants in one year’s time. I am sure the inspections involved follow-up visits and additional paperwork, but am I the only one who thinks this number is low?

Nobody, least of all me, wants to dine in a restaurant that has a dirty kitchen or a rodent problem, but there seems to be a rush to judgment here.

Jim Brown

Edgecomb

Column on climate change favors ideology over facts

Once again, somebody has to point out that M.D. Harmon is placing ideology over reality. This time, it has to do with his commentary titled “When is a gaffe not a gaffe? When a candidate is right” (Sept. 21).

1. Right now, there are not enough trees and other plants to turn our excessive carbon dioxide emissions into oxygen. Where does the excessive carbon dioxide go? It goes into the atmosphere and into the oceans. It warms both the oceans and atmosphere and creates climate change.

There is nothing benign about climate change. Human beings need to do something about climate change now. We should not make our grandchildren experimental guinea pigs for our ideologies.

2. Right now, German hydrogen-powered attack submarines patrol the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea on behalf of NATO. Those submarines are kept at the NATO naval base in Rota, Spain. NATO nations have tanks, planes, railroad engines, farm tractors, trucks, automobiles and buses all powered by hydrogen. Those nations will no longer purchase those items from us. Our nations will no longer be integrated with the other NATO forces.

3. In a very short time, Europe will be using hydrogen as the catalysis for Bloom Boxes to produce electrical energy. Those nations will be able to decentralize their production of electricity. We still try to maintain an obsolete electric grid.

Sen. Susan Collins absented herself from the vote to allow the armed services to begin the development of alternative fuels. The proposal was defeated. As a result, our armed services are still dependent on foreign oil.

Herbert W. Twiddy

Yarmouth

Limit on addiction treatment overlooks therapy’s efficacy

The decision by the state of Maine to limit state funding for the use of Suboxone or methadone to two years for those individuals recovering from addiction to opiates (narcotics) is horrible, but not surprising (Our View, “State policy could make bad drug problem worse,” Sept. 29). Politically, it is much easier to remove treatment for drug addicts than it is for those with cancer.

As chief medical officer for the Brattleboro Retreat, a mental health and addictions treatment center in Vermont, neither I nor my institution are directly influenced by this decision.

But as a physician, I can convey the evidence: Approximately 60 percent of individuals who continue with Suboxone maintenance after detoxification from opiates remain clean of drugs for one year, whereas about 5 percent of those who do not use maintenance medicine such as Suboxone or methadone remain clean for at least a year.

A few of our patients can taper off Suboxone after being on it for a year or two, but most individuals are unable to do so. These cravings continue, often for a lifetime.

We now understand that cravings are fueled by complex chemical reactions in the brain related to dopamine. We have identified at least seven genes that influence those cravings.

Before Suboxone became available, we rarely encountered individuals who could stay clean for years without methadone; now we see them every day (with the help of Suboxone and methadone).

My nephew was addicted, and the only way that he could stay clean was through the use of Suboxone, plus therapy. Please reconsider this short-sighted decision.

Frederick Engstrom, M.D.

Brattleboro Retreat

Brattleboro, Vt.

Views voiced in editorials not just leftist, but illogical

It is one thing to take every liberal position known to man, but those are political positions and though I may grumble about them, at least I understand them. However, two recent editorials fail even the rationality test.

First, the Press Herald suggests any new liquor contract mustn’t reduce prices because reducing the price for all would increase underage drinking (Our View, “Don’t lower liquor prices to boost sales,” Sept. 8).

Do you have any proof of this? Enforce the existing laws to limit the problem. Taken to its logical conclusion, we should ban alcohol.

What are your majority share owner, Donald Sussman, and his wife, Chellie Pingree, thinking? Why must Maine even have a “liquor contract”? Many states let companies arrange for their own shipping and delivery. Could this contract be at least one reason why we don’t have a Costco here?

Then you cap even that one. The Los Angeles Times editorial on who should get revenue from offshore drilling starts out as a legitimate question and then deteriorates to a Talking Points Memo on clean energy, using cliches like “wean itself off oil,” “worsen our oil addiction” and “bribing states” (Another View, “Feds should keep most offshore oil lease funds,” Sept. 17).

First, you are stuck in the 20th century. The country has weaned itself off imported oil — with the dramatic drop in the price of natural gas, most power plants have switched to gas.

With the development of huge oil and gas finds throughout this country, we can become energy independent in this decade. Instead, we dumped billions into “clean energy” and had company after company go bankrupt.

Hundreds of thousands of jobs have already been created in the energy industry. If the Obama administration would get out of the way, many more will be created. These are high-paying jobs. Have you checked on the unemployment rate in North Dakota?

To add insult to injury, you can’t even produce your own editorials any more. What a change Mr. Sussman has brought about.

Allan Brockman

Buxton

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