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