The Wall Street Journal - 02.08.2019

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. **** Friday, August 2, 2019 |A

U.S. NEWS

The Boy Scouts of America is co-hosting a two-week jamboree, where scouts from around the globe gather to attend various

exhibitions. Alan Lambert, top left, of the Boy Scouts said few changes had to be made to accommodate girls at this year’s event.

ANDREW SPEAR FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL (5)

Total membership of Boy

Scouts of America

2006 ’10’08 ’12 ’16’14 ’

Source: Boy Scouts of America

3

0

1

2

million

Scouts has sharpened efforts

to appeal to parents and chil-

dren. It launched a pilot pro-

gram offering science, technol-

ogy, engineering and math

classes and beefed up offer-

ings in activities like rock

climbing, BMX biking and

skateboarding at its premier

campsites.

The sex-abuse allegations

haven’t helped recruitment

and permanently stained the

reputation of the Boy Scouts

for some parents. Toniann

Hernandez, of Staten Island,

N.Y., said she won’t let her 9-

year-old son join the program.

Her son plays baseball instead,

she said.

“You hear these stories, and

you hear them over and over

again,” said Ms. Hernandez,

42. “And you have to protect
    your kids.”
    Many parents with children
    in the Boy Scouts said such
    fears are misguided. Bob
    Brady, a scoutmaster of an all-
    girl troop in New Jersey,
    which includes his two daugh-
    ters, said he isn’t worried be-
    cause he knows the precau-
    tions the organization takes to
    protect children. That includes
    background checks for volun-
    teers, periodic youth-protec-
    tion training and a policy that
    requires at least two adult
    leaders be present when inter-
    acting with scouts.
    The Boy Scouts of America
    was one of the last scouting
    organizations in the world to
    allow girls. About 250 girls
    from the U.S. attended the
    jamboree. Overall, girls made
    up about 40% of participants.
    Alan Lambert, assistant
    chief scout executive and na-
    tional director of outdoor ad-
    ventures for the Boy Scouts,
    said minimal changes had to
    be made to accommodate girls
    at the event.
    “They can participate seam-
    lessly just like they are doing
    this week,” Mr. Lambert said.
    “That’s a pretty exciting
    thing.”

Akin to the Olympics in the

scouting world, it is held every

four years and scouting organ-

izations bid to be hosts.

This year’s meetup was pro-

jected to be the largest ever,

with an estimated 45,

scouts and volunteers from

around the world gathered to

rock climb, zip line, target

practice and skateboard. To

feed the hungry scouts, there

was nearly 20 tons of rice on

hand, along with three tons of

American cheese and about

190,000 boxes of cereal.

At the international gather-

ing at its Summit Bechtel Fam-

ily National Scout Reserve, a

former coal-mining site nes-

tled in the rocky terrain of the

Appalachian Mountains, scouts

attended exhibitions to learn

about global issues such as cli-

mate change, poverty and gen-

der equality.

The U.S. last hosted the

world meetup in 1967, when

the Boy Scouts was in its hey-

day and had about six million

members. It currently has 2.

million members, according to

the organization. While about

20,000 girls recently joined

Scouts BSA and more than

77,000 girls have joined the

Cub Scouts, the Church of Je-

sus Christ of Latter-day Saints

is ending its long relationship

with the organization. The

church says it will launch its

own youth-leadership pro-

gram.

The modern Boy Scouts has

to compete with videogames

and streaming services like

Netflix, said spokeswoman Ef-

fie Delimarkos. Plus, parents

are busier than ever, making it

tougher for them to dedicate

time to participating in such

programs, she said.

Rob Barge, of Atlanta,

whose son is an Eagle Scout

and recently aged out of the

program, said he was con-

flicted over the organization’s

decision to allow girls. “I think

the value of qualified men

training boys to be men—our

society needs a place for that,”

he said.

In recent years, the Boy

MOUNT HOPE, W.Va.—Tens
of thousands of scouts from
more than 150 countries
marched across a campsite
here, chanting in their native
languages. Some American
boys and girls in red, white
and blue neckerchiefs chimed
in: “Everywhere we go, people
want to know, who we are, and
where we come from!”
The Boy Scouts of America,
which is co-hosting the two-
week World Scout Jamboree
that ends Friday, has traveled
far since its founding in 1910.
The honor of hosting this
sprawling event comes as the
national organization is going
through some of the most
transformative changes in its
history, while confronting de-
cadeslong declining member-
ship, shifting cultural norms
and a possible bankruptcy.
This year, the U.S. organiza-
tion began welcoming girls
into its flagship program,
known as Scouts BSA, after al-
lowing girls into the Cub
Scouts in 2018. That followed
allowing gay youths to join in
2013, and later gay leaders,
both of which were opposed
by some conservative mem-
bers. In 2017, the Boy Scouts
began accepting transgender
youth, stoking more contro-
versy.
“So many things that were
done years and years ago fit
the constituencies that we
were trying to serve. And our
society has changed,” said El-
lie Morrison, the national
commissioner, one of the top
three officials. “We have now
changed, and come more
aligned and are better pre-
pared to serve our communi-
ties and our nation.”
Now, the organization is
weighing filing for bankruptcy
as it faces an expected wave of
lawsuits alleging sexual mis-
conduct dating back decades.
It hasn’t decided whether to
file for bankruptcy, Ms. Morri-
son said in an interview.
“I am confident we will
come out stronger on the
other side of whatever is go-
ing to happen,” Ms. Morrison
said. Either way, she added,
“we will be prepared to be
here for America’s youth.”
The Boy Scouts of America
along with co-hosts Scouts
Canada and Asociación de
Scouts de México have
planned the 24th World Scout
Jamboree for about a decade.

BYJOSEPHDEAVILA

Scouts Meet

Amid Quest

For Renewal

potent opioid with 50 times

the strength of heroin, is a

major culprit in a skyrocketing

number of deaths from drug

use since 2014, according to

the CDC.

“It is older, entrenched us-

ers who had known how to

navigate the heroin supply,”

said Sheila Vakharia, a re-

searcher at the Drug Policy Al-

liance, a national organization

advocating for policies to re-

duce overdose deaths, addic-

tion and diseases related to

drug use. “Now that fentanyl

has entered the drug supply,

they are facing that extra risk

factor.”

Death rates in rural areas

were higher than in urban ar-

eas from 2007 through 2015,

the CDC found. But the urban

and rural lines have never

been far apart. While opioid

use was spreading across mid-

dle America, deaths from her-

oin continued to rise in the

cities, Dr. Vakharia said.

“It indicates the drug prob-

lem is a problem everywhere,”

said Holly Hedegaard, epide-

miologist at the CDC’s Na-

tional Center for Health Statis-

tics, and the lead author of the

agency’s report.

The analysis didn’t include

provisional CDC data from

2018, which show a likely drop

in drug deaths from 2017. That

would mark the first yearly

decline in overdose fatalities

since 1990.

The 2018 decline was led by

fewer deaths linked to natural

and semisynthetic opioids,

which includes prescription

pain pills.

Those drugs were bigger

killers in rural areas in the

CDC’s new analysis. The CDC

hasn’t published urban or ru-

ral drug overdose death rates

for 2018 yet, because the data

aren’t yet final.

The new CDC data show the

need for more efforts to make

drug use and overdoses less

risky, said Kimberly Sue, medi-

cal director at the Harm Re-

duction Coalition, a national

organization that advocates

for people and communities

affected by drug use.

Harm-reduction measures

can include clean-needle ex-

changes and public handouts

of naloxone, an overdose re-

versal drug. Several major cit-

ies including San Francisco,

Philadelphia and New York

have also been working to

open supervised injection sites

where there is medical help on

hand should drug users over-

dose, though this concept is

being tested in court by fed-

eral prosecutors who argue it

violates U.S. law.

“I think we need to redou-

ble our efforts in harm reduc-

tion,” Dr. Sue said.

The nation’s drug epidemic
is becoming increasingly ur-
ban, with death rates from
overdoses in cities overtaking
those of rural areas for the
first time in several years, ac-
cording to a new federal anal-
ysis published Friday.
For years, death rates from
drug overdoses rose faster in
rural America, as supply
chains of opioids and other
drugs expanded and abuse
took off. But urban overdose
death rates overtook those of
rural counties in 2016, outpac-
ing the rise in rural areas, the
analysis by the Centers for
Disease Control and Preven-
tion showed.
The findings reflect the ef-
fects of bootleg synthetic opi-
oids such as fentanyl on a
large, older cohort of longtime
drug users in urban areas,
some experts said. Fentanyl, a

BYBETSYMCKAY
ANDJONKAMP

U.S. Drug Epidemic Becoming Increasingly Urban

Rateofdrugoverdosedeathsinurbanareashassurpassedthoseinruralareas.

Source: National Center for Health Statistics

Note: Overall yearly figures include drugs not listed above. Deaths might also be counted in more than one drug category.

Overdose deaths in the U.S.

25

0

5

10

15

20

2000 ’10’05 ’

Urban Rural Urban Rural

deaths per 100,000 people

U.S. overdose deaths per 100,000 people in 2017

015 0

Natural and

semisynthetic opioids

Heroin

Synthetic opioids

other than methadone

Cocaine

Psychostimulants with

abuse potential

The organization

expects a wave of

lawsuits alleging

sexual misconduct.

The World Scout Jamboree at the Summit Bechtel Family National Scout Reserve, a former coal-

mining site nestled in the Appalachian Mountains. An estimated 45,000 scouts and volunteers

attended the meetup, participating in zip lining, trading patches, canoeing and other activities.

wsj_20190802_a003_p2jw214000_4_a00300_1____xa2019.crop.pdf 1 02-Aug-19 06:06: