IMMUNE TO COCAINE

Victor Pawlak's Feb. 12 letter attacking the need for a cocaine vaccine
makes me wonder where he spent the past 20 years. Cocaine not addictive?
Tell that to the athletes who lost multimillion-dollar careers because they
couldn't stop, to the lawyers and business executives who sacrificed
six-figure incomes, to the crack addicts who sold their bodies and their
lives for the next hit off the crack pipe.

Of course, a cocaine vaccine would not be a magic bullet, but it could
provide an important "window of opportunity" for addicts to stay clean
while they learn the relapse-prevention skills that can provide for lasting
recovery.

A few million dollars invested in the vaccine by the Office of National
Drug Control Policy could lead to help for hundreds of thousands of cocaine
addicts who want to stop and find they can't. As a clinician treating
addicts for more than 35 years, I welcome any additional tools that might
help these patients.

Herbert D. Kleber, New York