In her biased diatribe Dr. Sally Satel "reviews" Mike Gray's excellent
and insightful book "Drug Crazy." Virtually every paragraph of her
commentary contains a factual inaccuracy.

For example: Dr. Satel states "At the turn of the last century,
unrestricted access to morphine, heroin and cocaine led to a great
wave of addiction in the U.S. Witnessing this devastation of people's
lives, the nation responded with anti drug laws."

This is revisionist history at its worst. Our drug laws were
implemented by uninformed fear mongers like Harry Anslinger who used
blatant inaccuracies and wild exaggeration to push through legislation
that has resulted in the United States having the highest
incarceration rates in the world.

The "great wave of addiction" Dr. Satel refers to was the lowest
addiction rate in our nations history and something we would be
delighted with today. In other words eighty years of drug prohibition,
billions of wasted dollars, and millions of ruined lives has resulted
in a massive increase in addiction rates compounded by the fact that
any child in that country with a few dollars in his pocket can buy any
illegal drug at will.

I can only assume that Dr. Satel's livelihood as an "addiction
psychiatrist" depends on the continuation of drug prohibition. This
must be a primary factor in her inability to view the topic with logic
science and reason.

Mark Greer
Porterville, Calif.