ALTERNATIVES EXIST

To the Editor:

We applaud "The Mayor's Crusade Against Methadone" (editorial, Aug. 18) but
it is important to note that a low-cost, effective alternative to
methadone, using acupuncture and counseling, was pioneered at Lincoln
Hospital in the Bronx, N.Y.

Moreover, the earliest methadone programs, were meant to serve heroin
addicts. When crack replaced heroin as the drug of choice, crack addicts
were enrolled in methadone treatment programs. So many of the patients
currently being treated in methadone programs have never had an opiate
addiction.

Giving them methadone, an opiate, certainly does create another addiction.

CLAIRE HAAGA ALTMAN
STAN ALTMAN
New York, Aug. 18, 1998

The writers are, respectively, president of a nonprofit housing group and
director, Center for Health Policy and Management at the State University
of New York at Stony Brook.

Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski