Your story on women taking part in trials of the sex drug Viagra (21 July)
contained a warning from Liverpudlian urologist Derek Machin: "Viagra could
quickly become a drug of abuse used by men and women with normal sexual
function to enhance their sex lives." Oh dear! We certainly wouldn t want
people going around enhancing their sex lives, would we?

Assuming he was quoted correctly, Mr Machin appears to share the
all-too-common attitude that all drug use outside of doctors orders
constitutes abuse. On the contrary, informed adults have always used
drugs of various kinds to enhance their lives, whether to ward off
illness or simply to feel better. Only in the past several decades
has this practice come to be viewed as abusive, and then mostly by
certain moralisers and wowsers--who, unfortunately, tend to climb to
positions of power.

Good information and personal responsibility are the keys to
minimising drug-related harm--the cornerstone of Government s newly
released drug strategy. But at the same time, let s be grown-up
enough to admit that responsible drug use can and often does enhance
our lives--including our sex lives.

David Hadorn