The Port Townsend City Council’s July 5 meeting centered around a potentially wide-reaching project to calm speeds by replacing double-lane streets with single-lane two-way “edge lane roads”, following a revealing Public Works experiment performed on Blaine Street.
The meeting began quietly as council recused itself into executive session for 15 minutes to discuss the legal risks of a proposed action. Upon council’s return, Deputy Mayor Amy Howard as chair opened the meeting up for general public comment.
City Manager John Mauro responded to public comment by noting that the CDC recommends masking but it is not required, so people can make their own choices.
The first action item was a public hearing on Resolution 22-029 to adopt the 2023-2028 Six-year Transportation Improvement Program (STIP). Public Works Director Steve King explained that each year the city must submit its STIP to the State listing proposed projects and costs so they can be eligible for grants, since needs typically exceed available funding. This year’s STIP identified 47 projects costing $93 million. Councilors Ben Thomas and Aislinn Diamanti moved and seconded, then the resolution passed unanimously.
Idle Ban Again
In unfinished business, Ordinance 3292 banning 3+ minute vehicle idling on property open to the public came back for a second reading, having added emphatic intent language that:
The City Council encourages education rather than penalties in the enforcement of this Chapter, particularly for first offenses.
In public comment, Schumacher said he’s not thrilled about the freedom aspect of criminalizing what people do inside the privacy of their own cars. There are endless good reasons why someone might want to idle for more than 3 minutes to keep warm, recharge batteries, etc., and this measure disproportionately affects elderly and disabled people. It’s unlikely anyone will get charged given the numerous exceptions, but having victimless crime laws on the books is a dangerous practice that can lead to selective enforcement. Perhaps a health case could be made for restricting idling in congested areas like school pickup zones, but not elsewhere. He wished one of the student initiators could have attended council to advocate for their proposal.
Thomas echoed some of this comment, appreciating text added to clarify “the point of this is to educate not to penalize”; he still feels a little torn, but it’s great that kids are getting involved.
Councilor Monica MickHager felt likewise, thanking staff for hearing council discussion by adding a really nice ending sentence under Intent; she shared her surprise finding herself no longer idling while waiting for coffee now that she “got educated.”
Councilor Libby Wennstrom described similar educational benefits seen while waiting at ferries, dumpyards, and banks.
Howard related catching herself doing the same thing; she appreciates this now being in the forefront of her mind and hopes it will land in the forefront of others’ minds as a very small thing that can be done.
MickHager moved, Wennstrom seconded, and the finalized ordinance adding Chapter 10.08 to the PT Municipal Code passed unanimously. Howard drew laughs by quipping, “If the kids were here, they’d give it a round of applause.”
Staffing Resolutions
Several ordinances and resolutions were designed to beef up and reorganize staffing and its compensation:
Ordinance 3293 replaces the Deputy Clerk (sharing the City Clerk’s meeting and records management duties) with a Public Records Officer (PRO) specializing in responding to increasing Public Records Requests and storing accessible digital records, allowing the City Clerk to focus on meeting management. The timing is good while both Clerk and legal assistant positions are open. Councilor Owen Rowe asked whether Clerk and PRO would be cross-trained, which City Attorney Heidi Greenwood answered affirmatively. Rowe moved to waive council rules to allow approval at first meeting, Thomas seconded while thanking staff for thinking outside the box, and the ordinance passed unanimously.
Resolution 22-030 further reorganizes by replacing the Finance and Budget Analyst (making $78,090-$99,817 per year) with an Accounting Manager ($83,516-$116,295), and the Public Works Project Manager ($78,090-$99,817) with a Civil Engineer II ($85,706-$102,846). MickHager asked the difference between a Civil and City Engineer, so King clarified that a Civil Engineer II is a licensed engineer with a low number of years of experience, Civil Engineer III has more experience, and City Engineer includes managerial competence. Wennstrom noticed the “pretty big” salary range change, so asked about the budget impact if the city hires at the top end for both of these; Finance Director Connie Anderson responded that increased levels of responsibility justified that, and vacancies this year are helping to cover amounts in 2023. MickHager appreciated the great job restructuring and moved to approve. Diamanti seconded, and the resolution passed unanimously.
Resolution 22-031 authorized a 2022-2023 Teamsters Union contract for police wages and benefits, as negotiated by Anderson, Human Resources Officer Pamela Martinez, and Chief Thomas Olson (all present for this agenda item). Mauro said collective bargaining agreements are complex, so he was glad to have this team on it. Anderson said the emphasis was on retention and recruitment. Wennstrom noted wages changes start July 1, while benefits became effective January 1. MickHager moved, Thomas seconded, and the resolution passed unanimously.
Resolution 22-032 authorizes an accounting contract up to $35,000 with CPA firm TDJCPA. Anderson noted the city was missing a Finance Manager since last summer until a replacement was hired in January and Anderson arrived in March, so TDJCPA would help her fill that gap, put in controls, and build her team going forward. Wennstrom asked if this was included in the budget and would be ongoing. Anderson answered it was not in the budget, but the money is already covered by a position not yet filled; whether to renew will be re-evaluated, since TDJCPA provides a lot of services to fill in gaps for small communities. Rowe moved, MickHager seconded, and the resolution passed unanimously.
Long-line road stripe repainting was contracted out to the low bidder despite being $25,000 over budget due to pent-up demand and significantly higher fuel and paint prices. Wennstrom moved to proceed with reduced project scope per staff recommendation, Thomas seconded, and council approved unanimously.
ADU Parking Relief Delayed
New Planning Director Emma Bolin turned it over to Planning Manager Judy Surber to report back about amendents to PT Municipal Code 17.72 requested by council on March 14 to eliminate ADU parking requirements. The Planning Commission asked to broaden the scope of parking-related changes to include boarding houses, multifamily homes, B&Bs, etc.
Rowe and Diamanti were concerned how slight a delay this would be for their ADU priority, and agreed that anything arising that might bog down the process should be skipped. Thomas wanted a time limit, and Diamanti suggested 3 months.
Wennstrom wondered whether parking places should always be required to be paved with gravel and asphalt; the goal was to make it easier for existing dwellings to add an ADU, but current parking requirements make that harder.
MickHager proposed just keeping it focused on ADUs and doing that well. Diamanti responded that she understands staff’s preference is to combine changes as a more effective use of resources, which Surber confirmed. Howard was disinclined to stop the Planning Commision from doing this work.
Wennstrom moved to task the Planning Commission to explore other parking code amendments in tandem with ADUs with a request to get back to council by November 2022. MickHager seconded and the council concurred unanimously.
Edge Lane Roads Presentation
Public Works Director King and his staff explained Edge Lane Roads (ELRs) as a tool to address public concerns about street repair conditions and traffic calming.
ELRs turn narrow roads where folks often walk into explicitly single lane roads, forcing cars to slow and negotiate any obstacles like oncoming traffic, pedestrians, bicycles, and deer. They work better as two-way roads to make folks more cognizant of slowing down for safer passing. Installation costs are less than adding pedestrian/bicycle shoulders or concrete sidewalks.
Most important for preservation of our pavement, with streets decaying from the outside in, ELRs give the remaining pavement a longer life, as vehicles no longer drive on the edge of streets.
Edge Lane Road Experiment on Blaine Street
Public Works installed an experimental Edge Lane Road on two blocks of Blaine Street between Tyler and Adams at the cost of $1,000 plus $15,000 for initial engineering, outreach, and research.
One thing Public Works would have done differently would be to put the doorhangers up before the temporary lane was put on Blaine. But there were good discussions afterwards and better understanding after explaining this is now just a single-lane road.
Neighbors shared a variety of comments and observations, such as:
Why do this for an area that already has a sidewalk (not much used because it ends)?
One of the neighbors saw 4 times that a car sped up to get ahead of a pedestrian.
Another neighbor said speeds are now higher (perhaps not borne by data readings).
Speed monitoring revealed some curious and troubling results: average speeds dropped slightly inside the ELR Test Area, but grew substantially a block away, maxing out at 75.3 MPH!
King recommended keeping ELRs on streets with volume lower than 2,000 trips a day, at least to start, focusing on high pedestrian streets needing shoulder restoration. Due to the relationship between speed and severity of accidents, there’s big drop-off of dangers at 20 MPH compared to 25 MPH. Edge Lane Roads are a new tool, and staff appreciates feedback.
Edge Lane Roads – Public Comments
In public comments, Dan Burden said he went out three times to record what people were doing and what they thought, which was all positive. But what people saw was no change in speed, which surprised him. What’s wanted with traffic calming is to bring down the higher range of speeds. Burden offered great compliments to staff, since less that 1% of cities are doing this.
Schumacher thanked staff for opening his mind to these new ideas, but he’s concerned about arterials being deprecated. He related his experience attending a traffic planning meeting in the 90s where experts advised raising the speed limit on arterials like 19th Street to match the natural speed most people were driving, but the police chief vetoed the idea. There should be a balance to keep things moving along the arterials while making the backwaters safer. He’s also baffled by the 85% percentile speeds on Blaine from Quincy to Madison going up from 37 MPH (!) to 40 MPH (!!) right outside the ELR test region, since he hardly ever sees people drive more than 5 MPH above the speed limit in town.
Scott Walker said he’s generally supportive of the idea. In Austrialia, outback highways are one lane with shoulders, so if you see a truck coming, you move to the side, which works better than two lanes. He emphasized that paint is not a substitute for a physical separator. Blaine is a highly used street to get to Chetzemoka, so folks shouldn’t be asked to walk in the streets. Howard Street from Hastings to 35th has a huge amount of bicycles and pedestrians.
Edge Lane Roads – Council Comments
Thomas wondered what areas in town have more than 2,000 car trips per day; King replied that Landes Street by Safeway gets that. Thomas also wondered if striping would lead to more parking in ELRs.
Diamanti and Wennstrom asked about the $15,000 engineering cost; King replied that was the budgeted internal cost as if it came from an external engineering department.
Wennstrom asked about the 75 MPH maximum speed detected during the test. King replied it was an outlier, but staff was shocked and checked the equipment was working correctly.
Councilors brainstormed other parts of town they’d like to install ELRs, springing off of staff’s recommended list.
MickHager was glad Landes was taken out, but would like ELRs added in the areas around Castle Hill, Howard Street, McPherson Street, and Hancock Street near Memory Lane.
Wennstrom suggested one on Sheridan Street between Hastings and Umatilla. Rowe suggested around Cherry and Redwood Streets; he supports continuing with this and hopes it does become something accepted in town.
Thomas asked whether these are as good as a two-lane road with bike lanes on each side for safe bicycle usage. King replied that depends on the specific situation and condition of the shoulders; for streets like F Street it’s important to have separated bike lanes per Walker’s comment.
MickHager said she’s for this idea, and was very surprised that she didn’t get one positive response from anybody in her community! She wonders how to spread ELRs diversely to the community out into places like Castle Hill and North Beach, because most of the sites on the list are in the older part of town. She thinks people could get used to them if they were put in popular roads like 14th Street.
MickHager continued jokingly that she’s glad “you’re going to lower the speed limit to 20 miles an hour; please could we do that on all our streets? That’s how I feel about it. My family does not talk to me anymore, because that’s how I feel about it. They think I’m crazy, but I’m not!”
Wennstrom said that having cars parked on the side of streets in residential neighborhoods helps with traffic calming. She noted that 80% bicyclists on San Juan Avenue ride on the sidewalks rather than on the bike lanes. She laughed in incredulity that, “Wow, we took out all this parking and built these big huge bike lanes, and right on the sidewalk!”
Diamanti said that feedback has been a lot more favorable than the infrastructure committee was afraid of when they first started talking about ELRs. She thinks it’s a really smart option and a chance to be leaders.
Howard joshed that “she sincerely hopes whoever was driving 75 was experiencing some sort of an emergency, and not having a temper tantrum because we forced them to do something new.” She did try driving it herself, and the hardest part was the signage, which was too small if you were driving, so you had to slow down to look at it.
Howard added that the biggest problem is Americans are fiercely individualistic and try to get their car in front of others’, so we need to make this a community culture thing where we share our streets and make them accessible to everyone, which should be part of the messaging. She would like it if ELRs discourage giant delivery trucks: “Maybe narrowing it they’ll have a harder time and won’t use that one as much, preserving that pavement quite a bit.”
Wennstrom concluded that “it’s an educational opportunity. I remember, when we were first talking about putting in roundabouts, the screaming and yelling… and now people have pretty much got the feel for the roundabouts and see the value. So getting past that initial ‘whoa, that’s scary and weird,’ and some familiarity before it happens in your neighborhood, I think is a great idea.”
City Manager Mauro reported about recruiting clerk, public records, and police officers. The city’s 2023 Workplan Retreat is being held Monday, July 18, 10am-4pm at the Northwest Maritime Center, and any member of the public is free to attend. The city is part of an electric network consortium getting a $4 million grant to build up fast chargers for electric vehicles.
Mauro ran through updates on large capital projects including Discovery Road, Kearney Street, Lawrence Street, Chetzemoka kitchen shelter, library, golf course, and optimizing City Hall for comfort and efficiency.
Suicide and substance abuse touch all our lives. These horrors and tragedies surround us.
In my eight years in this town, I have personally known one young man who hanged himself, and I’m friends with people whose relatives have taken their lives in what should have been their prime years.
I found one suicide victim, a man who had veered off the road intentionally to collide with a tree. I won’t forget opening that crumpled door, feeling for the pulse that wasn’t there and saying a prayer as I awaited the emergency services response. First responders and loved ones and friends found the other suicides and those who died by overdose.
I helped with the funeral service for the young man who hung himself outside Manresa Castle. He had a severe opiate addiction. He was living at the Mill Road transient camp, as it was then known (now called the Caswell-Brown camp after two people found dead in our community.) About 200 mostly young people attended that service.
The young man’s drug dealer was stopped at the door to the church because he attempted to smuggle in a small dog under his shirt. He was there to score, not mourn. Having just been released from jail, he didn’t have any of his own dope. According to a substance abuse expert who was in attendance, about half of the 200 people were addicts. Some had come drunk, and I found an empty vodka fifth in a waste can. Others were high. As I was closing up that evening I noticed two cars parked at the very edge of the church property. I almost tapped on a window but stopped when I saw people inside shooting up.
A funeral for an addict who had died by his own hand or overdose was sadly nothing new. I wonder how many of those troubled souls have since overdosed and/or contemplated or attempted suicide.
Our community’s hidden suffering, hopelessness and despair is expressed in these deaths. Yet the question of whether Lombardy poplars should be felled draws more attention and passion than these tragedies. Trees along Sims Way have been given names; the suicides and overdose fatalities are nameless to the general public.
Maybe in rarefied circles in this community some can claim they have no personal connection with anyone or any family that has lost someone to despair and drugs. I don’t believe them, any more than the city council member who told me he has no one in his family or circle of friends suffering from addiction.
A death like that of Jarrod Bramson, the popular musician whose death was attributed to homicide by his drug dealer, is not far removed from the category of suicide or fatal overdose. It was a fatal overdose, just not administered by Jarrod himself. Maybe it can be considered assisted suicide. Isn’t that descending spiral of addiction and substance abuse little more than a slow suicide? Are not every one of of the dealers handing out Fentanyl pills assisting suicide?
County Prosecutor James Kennedy’s office has provided at my request what is a colorless inventory of suicides and fatal overdoses in Jefferson County. The identities of the deceased are shielded according to state law. Those tables are found below.
Partial screen shot of information complied by Jefferson County Prosecuting Attorney Office at Port Townsend Free Press request.
Prosecutor Kennedy writes,
“[T]he true picture is murkier than the numbers. For example, it is not uncommon to come across a person who has committed suicide, by gun shot or hanging, for example, where drug (and/or alcohol) paraphernalia is present. We usually test the decedent’s blood for drugs in those cases and the results are almost always positive. We typically classify these deaths as a suicide even though drugs clearly played a significant role in the death.”
Kennedy continues,
“Other times we have come across long term drug users who die after having ingested a significantly higher amount of drugs than they typically use. What they ‘typically’ use is often hard to pin down with certainty — if available it comes anecdotally from acquaintances — but the inference remains that this was a suicide by drug overdose. However, since we cannot be certain, we usually classify these deaths as we would an overdose, unless there is other indicia present like a suicide note.”
Victoria Brown, age 23, is in these tables. She died of an overdose in the lawless transient camp the County Commission permitted to fester for more than a year at the Fairgrounds. The transient camp on Mill Road that the county has established with OlyCAP is named after her, as well as John Caswell. He died during the heat wave in 2021. I am friends with the man who had tried to help him that day and later found him dead by a picnic table off Sims Way.
Caswell’s death cannot be detached from his substance abuse. He had been drinking alcohol in the oppressive heat, and help had been sought at the hospital to cool him down. The hospital put him back on the street. He was scheduled to enter alcohol treatment in a couple of days. In the meantime, he had to stay “balanced” (as chronic drinkers call it) to fight off shakes, withdrawal and DTs. Is his death a fatal overdose and/or a suicide?
How many other deaths need to be added to these tables? How many suicides have been attempted, how many overdoses have been reversed just short of death? (About thirty 10th and 12th graders report attempting suicide in the past year, according to the 2021 Healthy Youth Survey, on which Port Townsend Free Pressreported.)
Prosecutor Kennedy has suggested running down further information from law enforcement and emergency services, saying “this is a really important issue. Thank you for paying attention to it.” I will be seeking to obtain further information on our county’s attempted suicides and non-fatal overdoses for a future report.
Twenty-five percent of Jefferson County high schoolers made a plan to kill themselves in the last year. About 30 tenth and twelfth graders tried to kill themselves.
These and other alarming reports of severe mental health problems among the county’s high schoolers were released as part of the 2021 Healthy Youth Survey conducted by the Washington Department of Health. 354 Jefferson County students participated in the study, which also covers all counties statewide.
Our county’s youth report crushing hopelessness. 36% of tenth graders reported feeling so sad or hopeless that they stopped doing their usual activities. That pall of debilitating malaise rose to 44% among 12th graders. The DOH’s statewide results show that youth sensing no or only slight hope are twice as likely to consider suicide as youth with a moderate to high sense of hope.
83% of 12th graders reported feeling nervous or anxious in the two weeks preceding the survey, and 71% of them were unable to stop worrying in that time period. The numbers for 10th graders are only insignificantly better.
Among 12th graders, 26% reported (24 students) considering suicide during the year, 10% (9 students) reported making a suicide plan, 8% (7-8 students) reported attempting suicide. Among 10th graders, 21% (30 students) reported considering suicide, 25% (36 students) made a suicide plan, and 13% (19 students) reported attempting suicide.
Statewide, according to DOH, substance abuse reporting is down over 2018, but mental health problems are more widespread and severe. The 2021 survey found that statewide 74% of 10th graders reported feeling nervous, anxious, on edge, or not being able to stop or control worrying, 20% reported they seriously considered attempting suicide, 16% reported they made a suicide plan, and 8% reported they attempted suicide in the past 12 months. The rates for planning and attempting suicide by 10th graders are higher in Jefferson County. Jefferson County 12th graders reported considering suicide and attempting suicide also at rates higher than the comparable state rates.
Readers are encouraged to read the Fact Sheets from the survey for Jefferson County high schoolers. Much more data, some broken down by demographics, is available. You may use this link: Healthy Youth Survey 2021. Click on the Fact Sheets link at the top of the page, then select “county” and pull down Jefferson County. From there you can access many fact sheets on mental health, substance abuse and other indicia of teen health. The 134 pages of survey results cover 6th, 8th, 10th and 12th graders.
Dozens of graphs in the Healthy Youth Survey 2021 show detailed analyses of mental health indicators, substance abuse and other well-being factors in our community. This breakdown shows a higher incidence of bullying experienced in Jefferson County as compared to Washington State, at every grade level.
Suicide is the second leading cause of death for Washington teens 15-19 years old, the survey explained, and most youth suicides occur at home. Suicide attempts among children even as young as 9 years old is on the rise. As reported by Hannah Furfaro, a Seattle Times mental health reporter:
“A pair of new national research studies and Washington data help confirm what Marshall and many others are seeing in hospitals across the Pacific Northwest. Use of medications or other poisons to attempt suicide or self-harm are rising among youths as young as 9, and the largest increases are among those ages 10-12. The number of kids in that age group who ingested some type of poisonous medication or other substance to attempt suicide increased by 4.5 times from 2000 to 2020, according to one of the national studies, published in JAMA Pediatrics in March, compared to a 2.4-fold increase among older adolescents.”
The 2021 survey found a slight decrease in drug use that may only be temporary. According to Dr. Maayan Simckes, an epidemiologist with the Washington Department of Health, drug use could well increase as teens go back to more normal lives, which involves being able to gather with peers, and potentially partying.
Jefferson County’s Board of Health Response and Action
The 2021 data is nothing new. At its April 2019 meeting, Dr. Tom Locke, then the public health officer, told the Jefferson County Board of Health that the 2018 Healthy Youth Survey results “showed concerning findings in the youth mental health category.” At the following month’s meeting, team members from the Substance Abuse Prevention Program at the Health Department were supposed to provide “a more in depth look at the data from the Healthy Youth Survey.” (Reporting on substance abuse among high schoolers was also cause for concern.)
The Board of Health never returned to the mental health crisis among Jefferson County high schoolers. Instead of considering data that was supposed to be provided by the Substance Abuse Prevention Program, the Board spent its meeting time discussing nuclear disarmament. In the past three-plus years since the county’s public health officer informed the Board of Health of “concerning findings” about youth mental health, the subject has never been an agenda item. The 2021 Healthy Youth Survey results were released in March of this year but have not been discussed by the Board of Health.
The members of the Board of Health are County Commissioners Greg Brotherton, Heidi Eisenhour and Kate Dean; Libby Wennstrom, Port Townsend City Council Member; Kees Kolff, Public Hospital District Commissioner; Sheila Westerman, Citizen-at-Large; and Denis Stearns, Citizen-at-Large.
Tomorrow, June 27, 2022, Clallam naturopathic physician and author Rick Marschall is due to report for 8 months in jail at the Federal Detention Center in Sheridan, Oregon, after being entrapped in an FDA sting operation. His crime: selling garlic extracts to help COVID-19 patients.
The title of Marschall’s self-published book on Amazon best sums up his philosophy as a naturopathic physician: First Do No Harm. He graduated from Bastyr University in Kenmore, Washington with a license to prescribe anything except opiates. But his focus during his thirty-six years of practice in Clallam County has been on plant-based solutions.
The “Misbranded Drug”: Garlic and Starch
When COVID-19 rolled around, the United States government did not agree with his approach. In the spring of 2020, Marschall says he was having success with a Dynamic Duo product of allicin and larch starch powder for treating this virus.
Allicin is an extract of garlic that serves as an antiviral agent and does not harm good bacteria. The starch, called inuloarabinogalactan (IAG), is a powder from the bark of a larch tree that increases the number of white blood cells available to the immune system.
His book states, “One reason this treatment works so well for COVID-19, a more sophisticated and bioengineered virus, is that this high potency extract of garlic helps to repair damage to the hemoglobin molecule, and it reduces blood clots in the lungs.”
A year later, the National Institute of Health (NIH) confirmed this with an article on its web site. Study results “showed that allicin (L-cysteine) could significantly impact on improvement of signs and symptoms of COVID-19 after two weeks of treatment in comparison to placebo.”
The Sting Operation
Nevertheless, according to court documents, on March 26, 2020, the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Office of Criminal Investigations (OCI) initiated an investigation after receiving complaints “regarding Facebook postings by Marschall and others” about his Dynamic Duo product for treating COVID-19.
On March 30, 2020, an undercover agent for the FDA-OCI texted Marschall that she was “scared about the corona virus so I would like to hear about this product.” The court documents show the two then had a recorded phone conversation in which Marschall said, “Unfortunately, because everybody wants this stuff, you know there’s a bit of a wait.”
The following day, Marshall called and “indicated that the Dynamic Duo was now available.” The undercover agent provided credit card information for the purchase of the product for $140 plus $9.50 for shipping.
On April 2, 2020, by way of the United State Post Office, the product was received in Oakland, California. The undercover agent then mailed the package to the FDA-OCI office in Kirkland, Washington, where they examined the package.
Court documents reveal that the package included a document that stated that the Dynamic Duo “can crush 30 different viral infections, including those in the Corona family, (like in China Corona-19), 40 different bacterial infections, 25 different fungal infections and 20 different parasitic infections like amoebas.”
The special agent concluded in the court document that Marschall “did knowingly and intentionally introduce, deliver, and cause the introduction and delivery for introduction into interstate commerce, drugs, in violation of Title 21, United States Code, Sections 331(a) and 333(a)(2).”
“Because I am a health coach, it would have been okay for me to deliver the product anywhere within state lines,” Marschall said. “My delivery outside of the state would have been okay had I not used a claim or purpose of the product notice. They picked on me to scare people. It doesn’t get any crazier than this.”
The Mistrial
The case was then filed against Marschall in the Federal Western District Court in Tacoma on August 5, 2020. Court documents show he was indicted under 21 U.S.C. 331(a), which prohibits the “introduction or delivery for introduction into interstate commerce of any … drug … that is adulterated or misbranded.”
Marschall said he first received an e-mail from the government and then a letter concerning the case against him. “They could have just sent me a warning letter,” Marschall said. “For example, with a mushroom company that does the same type of thing that I do, the government told them to stop doing it, or else they would shut them down.”
Court document 299 in this case reveals that United States District Court Judge Benjamin H. Settle made the following statement: “While the Food and Drug Administration has discretion to warn or notify individuals or entities it believes are violating FDA regulations, the government is not required to provide individual notice or an opportunity to cease his (Marschall’s) unlawful activity before charging him.”
After a year of proceedings, on August 9, 2021, court documents show that the “jury foreperson declared that the jury is unable to reach a verdict. The jury was polled individually, and all members agree. The Court declares a mistrial.”
After the trial, Marschall says that the judge waived the law shielding jurors from scrutiny and allowed prosecutors to discuss the case with the jurors. As far as Marschall was concerned, this was rare, constitutionally unlawful decision to allow prosecutors to determine the weak points in their case.
Retrial and Conviction
Another trial was carried out in late October. Court documents show that on October 22, 2021 the jury reached the following verdict: “As to the charge of Introduction of Misbranded Drugs into Interstate Commerce, as charged in Count One, we, the Jury, find the Defendant, Richard Marschall guilty.”
Marschall points to the following two injustices during the trial that led to his conviction:
The judge ordered the jury not to consider any argument relying on the First Amendment’s freedom of speech.
The judge instructed the jurors not to consider the direct testimony given by a Bastyr University naturopathic professor.
The judge sentenced Marschall to eight months of imprisonment at the Federal Detention Center in Sheridan, Oregon. Judge Settle checked off the following box in his sentencing statement: “The defendant shall surrender for service of sentence at the institution designated by the Bureau of Prisons as notified by the Probation or Pretrial Services Office.”
On May 24, 2022, the judge issued the following: “It is now ordered that the date by which Mr. Marschall must report to FCI Sheridan is extended from May 26, 2022 to no sooner than June 27, 2022.”
Even though this is Marschall’s third conviction in Federal court under the same statute and he had his credential to practice as a naturopathic physician permanently revoked by the state of Washington on October 9, 2018, he remains committed to providing allicin and IAG powder to his COVID-19 patients.
Community Response
Marschall has been active in local health freedom pushback since the lockdowns started, so many friends and well-wishers have been outraged by these injustice proceedings against him. A GiveSendGo campaign was started to help his wife pay bills during his imprisonment.
On June 18, Marschall was lured to the 7th Day Adventist Church in Sequim for a fake “special Vegan Cooking workshop” so the community could instead celebrate him with a surprise 70th birthday party.
Letters of support were sent to the 9th District Court asking for a bond to keep Marschall out of prison. Here’s one from Stephen Schumacher:
Regarding Case#CR20-5270 BHS of the FDA vs. Rick Marschall, please strongly consider expediting a bond to Mr. Marschall so he can stay out of prison until his case is heard on appeal.
As seen in court documents, this is a very troubling case of an undercover sting operation directed against sharing information about a nutritional supplement that anyone can buy on Amazon and has been found to help with Covid-19.
Mr. Marschall is a senior citizen who has caused no harm and is not a danger to anyone; in fact, his supposed crime was trying to help others with treatment options.It is a cruel waste of taxpayer money to incarcerate him prior to appeal.
Please expedite this request before Mr. Marschall must report to FCI Sheridan on June 27.
The FDA’s expensive, multiyear persecution of Marschall for selling garlic is reminiscent of the merciless pursuit of Jean Valjean for stealing a loaf of bread to feed starving children.
UPDATE and CORRECTION: After talking this afternoon with Amy Yaley (JHC Director of Marketing and Communications), it appears likely that your medical data is NOT being sent to Facebook through Jefferson Healthcare’s MyChart portal, even though Facebook Pixel Code scripts are present on their regular web pages.
My original article statements were based on recollecting having seen Facebook scripts while inspecting my personal MyChart patient data, but the screenshots below that have evidence of Facebook scripts show the web address “jeffersonhealthcare.org“. If this page had really been from inside MyChart, then the web address would have been “wamt.myonlinechart.org“, as seen in the feature image above.
There are still some unanswered questions, and I am waiting to connect with the person who can answer them. I will update this story with any further clarifications.
What we are left with is that many hospitals around the country have websites that compromise patient data to Facebook, but at this point Jefferson Healthcare does not appear to be one of them.
[Original article text follows:]
Nonprofit technology watchdog The Markup discovered that “a tracking tool installed on many hospitals’ websites (33 of Newsweek’s top 100 hospitals in America) has been collecting patients’ sensitive health information — including details about their medical conditions, prescriptions, and doctor’s appointments — and sending it to Facebook. … We found the tracker, called the Meta Pixel, sending Facebook a packet of data whenever a person clicked a button to schedule a doctor’s appointment.”
This Meta Pixel tracker was detected inside password-protected patient portals such as the MyChart system provided by Jefferson Healthcare. Data breaches uncovered by the crowd-sourced Pixel Hunt project included:
When one real patient who participated in the Pixel Hunt study logged in to the MyChart portal…, the Meta Pixel installed in the portal told Facebook the patient’s name, the name of their doctor, and the time of their upcoming appointment.
When another Pixel Hunt participant used the MyChart portal…, the pixel told Facebook the type of allergic reaction the patient had to a specific medication.
Clicking on one button prompted the pixel to tell Facebook the name and dosage of a medication in our health record, as well as any notes we had entered about the prescription.
Clicking the “Schedule Appointment” button on a doctor’s page prompted the Meta Pixel to send Facebook the text of the button, the name of the doctor, and the search term we used to find the doctor: “Home abortion.”
When The Markup clicked the “Finish Booking” button…, the pixel sent Facebook not just the name of the doctor and her field of medicine but also the first name, last name, email address, phone number, zip code, and city of residence we entered into the booking form.
In addition, if a patient is logged in to Facebook when they visit a hospital’s website where a Meta Pixel is installed, some browsers will attach third-party cookies — another tracking mechanism — that allow Meta to link pixel data to specific Facebook accounts.
After learning about this potential problem, I signed in to my own Jefferson Healthcare MyChart account, which I’m told “offers secure online access to portions of your electronic health record”. By right-clicking and choosing the “Page Source” or “Inspect” option, it was easy to verify that Jefferson Healthcare’s MyChart webpages are laced with Facebook connections and scripts. See this screenshot:
Here’s another screenshot showing Jefferson Healthcare explicitly including “Facebook Pixel Code” for the Meta Pixel tracking software:
Note that HIPAA law “prohibits covered entities like hospitals from sharing personally identifiable health information with third parties like Facebook, except when an individual has expressly consented in advance or under certain contracts” — which has certainly not happened in this case.
I originally learned about this nationwide problem from Dr. Robert Malone’s substack, where he writes:
I was struck that patients should demand that their data not be entered into such systems. That a movement to return to data entry systems that are not corrupted by Meta, Facebook or Google needs to be jump-started.
As late as 2017, the government was actually worried about medical systems being hacked. But now? Where is our government in protecting patient’s rights?
Clearly, “we” the people can not rely on the US government. Therefore, we have to protect ourselves. Our doctors and hospitals are being encouraged to buy cloud-based, software solutions to “protect us.”
These medical providers also need to be educated — these large cloud systems-based solutions have been corrupted. The medical providers must understand that patients should be given a choice to opt-out of the system. The right to privacy extends to healthcare in its entirety.
The Free Press reached out to Jefferson Healthcare to inform them of this concerning situation and ask for comment. Despite being occupied in an all-day staff meeting at press time, Jefferson Healthcare was able to issue the following statement: “Our goal is to provide exceptional patient care to every patient we serve. Jefferson Healthcare complies with all laws and regulations protecting patient data. We are actively investigating.”
[Editors’ note: The Free Press will update this article as more information becomes available.]
Last June Jefferson County Emergency Management popped up vax clinics at the Saturday Farmers Market, in those pre-booster days excitedly advertising “Johnson & Johnson vaccine available today! One and Done!” Not seeing any takers, I tried talking with one of the masked doctors there, and was surprised by his enthusiasm to give these experimental injections to young children regardless of kids’ risks exceeding benefits for the sake of supposed societal good.
Vaxxers at PT Farmers Market, June 5, 2021 (photo: Stephen Schumacher)
I was reminded of this attitude while reading a peer-reviewed study finding “teenagers are [up to 6 times] more likely to get vaccine-related myocarditis than end up in hospital with Covid,” where a commentator expressed that “Whether or not [young kids] are at high risk relative to the adverse side effects, they should be vaccinated to reduce the probability of older, more at-risk people from getting it.” (Since the injected appear to be more infectious, it’s unclear how that helps grandma.)
This attitude mystified me back then, but I understand it better now after reading Dr. Robert Malone’s explanation of the dark philosophy that has replaced “Do no harm” in modern Public Health:
Dr. Robert Malone interviewed with Dr. Ryan Cole in Gig Harbor, WA on Feb. 21, 2022 (photo: Stephen Schumacher)
As taught in most Universities, “Public Health” (as in the Masters of Public Health degree programs) is also largely based on these two 18th and 19th century philosophical theories (utilitarianism and malthusianism).
As opposed to the disciplines of Medicine and clinical research, which are grounded in the principles of the Hippocratic oath and beneficence as applied to the individual patient.
Examples of beneficence in clinical research and medical practice include “Do no harm,” “Balance benefits against risks,” and “Maximize possible benefits and minimize possible harms.”
What’s so bad about replacing individual patients’ rights and well-being with Public Health’s new utilitarian emphasis on purported “greatest good of the greatest number”? Consider this thought experiment:
A man walks into his doctor’s office for a health checkup. After completion of the exam, he asks “Doc, how am I doing?” His utilitarian MD-MPH turns and says, “You are in perfect health. Your heart is perfect, your liver is perfect, and your kidneys are perfect. And I have four other patients that will die in the next week if they do not get transplants requiring a donated heart, liver or kidney. So I will be prepping you for surgery in one hour.”
Four lives saved for one sacrificed. I think that we can all agree that, while this scenario may meet a utilitarian standard, it fails to meet the fundamentals of Judeo-Christian belief systems regarding the Hippocratic oath and principle of beneficence. But if reports are correct, in the very utilitarian, marxist reality which is modern China under the CCP, organ harvesting is a fact of life.
Dr. Malone concluded that:
As we look back at the long list of public health lies and tragedies that have occurred since January 2020, I have been trying to think through what systemic changes should be implemented to help prevent such catastrophically poor decision making in the future.
I suggest that at the top of the list we include jettisoning both the philosophical dependence of public health decision making (as taught in MPH programs) on utilitarian philosophy, and instead substitute a Judeo-Christian values-based public health decision making process. We have let the MPH utilitarians interject themselves in place of the traditional role of the Physician, and have had to live through the consequences.
Those consequences are now being revealed by research volunteers studying “the 55,000 internal Pfizer documents which the FDA had asked a court to keep under wraps for 75 years”.
Pfizer (and thus the FDA) knew by December 2020 that the MRNA vaccines did not work — that they “waned in efficacy” and presented “vaccine failure.”
Pfizer knew in May of 2021 that 35 minors’ hearts had been damaged a week after MRNA injection — but the FDA rolled out the EUA for teens a month later anyway, and parents did not get a press release from the US government about heart harms til August of 2021, after thousands of teens were vaccinated.
Athletes and college students and teenagers are collapsing on football and soccer fields. Doctors wring their hands and express mystification. But BioNTech’s SEC filing shows a fact about which the CDC and the AMA breathe not a word: fainting so violently that you may hurt yourself is one of the side effects important enough for BioNTech to highlight to the SEC.
Pfizer (and thus the FDA; many of the documents say “FDA: CONFIDENTIAL” at the lower boundary) knew that … the mRNA spike protein and lipid nanoparticles did not stay in the injection site in the deltoid, but rather went, within 48 hours, into the bloodstream, from there to lodge in the liver, spleen, adrenals, lymph nodes, and, if you are a woman, in the ovaries.
Lipid nanoparticles, the tiny hard fatty casings that contain the MRNA, traverse the amniotic membrane. That means that they enter the fetal environment, of course. (They also traverse the blood-brain barrier, which may help explain the post-MRNA vaccination strokes and cognitive issues we are seeing). … The assurance that the vaccine is “safe and effective” for pregnant women, was based on a study of 44 French rats, followed for 42 days.
While pregnant women were excluded from the internal studies, and thus from the EUA on which basis all pregnant women were assured the vaccine was “safe and effective”, nonetheless about 270 women got pregnant during the study. More than 230 of them were lost somehow to history. But of the 36 pregnant women whose outcomes were followed – 28 lost their babies.
This week the FDA is gearing up to grant new Emergency Use Authorization to inject this witch’s brew into babies as young as 6 months old, and the White House is rolling out 10 million doses prior to authorization.
Children’s Health Defense chairman Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. gave notice to the FDA and CDC on February 9 and June 10 that:
Should you recommend this pediatric EUA vaccine to children under five years old, CHD is poised to take legal action against you. CHD will seek to hold you accountable for recklessly endangering this population with a product that has little, no, or even negative net efficacy but which may put them, without warning, at risk of many adverse health consequences, including heart damage, stroke and other thrombotic events and reproductive harms.
Commenting on the White House targeting babies with Covid countermeasures that were “never about science or public health” prior to FDA safety review, Kennedy made clear that:
Now they have departed from common sense and into naked cruelty and barbarism. By recommending an unapproved, experimental, zero-liability and high-risk medical intervention for an illness that poses zero statistical danger to that age group, the White House has made itself the enemy of America’s children.
The Pharma gods have demanded child sacrifice and the high priests of public health have offered a generation of infants. Now more than ever, parents and physicians must step into the breach to protect our babies from our government.
Our regulatory agencies and elected officials are not protecting us because they are in lockstep with Big Pharma and mainswamp media promoting this sacrificial message. Their propaganda has been internalized by many who we used to trust to know better, as evidenced by the enthusiasm of the doctor I spoke with at the pop-up vaccine clinic. Jefferson County Public Health’s website is teeming with information on where these dangerous shots are available for 5-11 year olds. Will they soon be adding kids under five?
