WE'VE BEEN MISLED INTO BELIEVING ADDICTION AN ILLNESS

In her Dec. 13 column, headlined "Please, Mr. Mayor don't abandon them
to a lifetime of drugs," Susan Martinuk attacks proposed
harm-reduction policies that will save lives.

Harm reduction is but a compassionate holding action until the federal
government either comes to its senses and legalizes all drugs or is
compelled to do so by the courts.

Alan Randell,

Victoria

If Susan Martinuk is really interested in solving the drug problem,
rather than just wailing about it, she should do the same thing
Vancouver Mayor Philip Owen has done: read the research on the subject.

Martinuk can find the full text of every major study done on the
subject in the last 100 years at http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer
under Major Studies of Drugs and Drug Policy. If Owen is supporting
harm reduction, it is because he has done his homework and read the
research on the subject.

Martinuk apparently has not.

Clifford A. Schaffer

Director, DRCNet Online Library of Drug Policy

Canyon Country, Calif.