MORALITY, NOT MEDICINE

To the Editor:

Re "The Mayor's Crusade Against Methadone" (editorial, Aug. 18): As a
family physician who has spent his career working in inner-city clinics I
am appalled by Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani's plan to force patients in New
York City hospitals off methadone. This plan smacks of moral judgment
rather than good medicine.

Can anyone imagine taking a depressed patient off Prozac? A heart patient
off Digoxin?

Addiction is a disease as much as any other physical or mental impairment.
Wouldn't it be better to treat a disease with a medicine that works at
stabilizing behavior and allows the patient to return to a meaningful life?

ROB KILLIAN, M.D.
Seattle, Aug. 18, 1998

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski