DRUG HYSTERIA

Your alarmist May 13 editorial about "this
newly menacing scourge," OxyContin, seems strangely hysterical. How
many deaths can there have been from recreational use--1,000? 10,000?
Hardly likely. We are used to megadeaths, the number killed by
firearms, the number killed by vehicle accidents, the number of
suicides. Surely all of those dwarf the OxyContin deaths by far?

Clearly your editorial was another salvo in the drug war by a
government intent on saving us from ourselves. I did not fail to
notice the hot-button words: associating OxyContin with the date-rape
drug, the DEA and heroin. In a word: propaganda.

Harry D. Fisher, Woodland Hills, Calif. --