P.S. TO HEROIN MISSIVE: N.A. GETS IT RIGHT

CINTRA WILSON

DEAREST Fed-Up-With-the Topic Readers :

I know I swore not to talk about heroin anymore, but this is essentially
the first staunchly anti-heroin letter I've gotten since the whole chat
began, and I thought it important to show this side of the issue as well -
you may skip it and return to the flock next week if this timely discussion
bores you.

This letter comes in response to the one by Carl L. of a few weeks ago, who
wrote a very long and interesting letter about his choosing heroin over
abstinence, after long periods of both:

Dearest Cintra,

It is very, very sad to read this letter published in your column from a
person who gave up!

I have 15 years' recovery time through Narcotics Anonymous. I am not
bragging. No one said life was fair or easy or free from loneliness,
boredom, hard times or fear.

When a drug addict, any drug addict, cleans up, (s)he has a slim chance of
success. You have to really want it. Heroin addiction is not glamorous,
fun, chic or the answer.

So many people in San Francisco are terminally unique; the big problem is
that users can and do die from it. I know for a fact. Coming from the punk
scene in the late 1970s, I knew a lot of strung-out junkies and sporadic
users. My good friend, Will Shatter, whom some of you may remember, OD'd. I
knew others who died that way. One girl I knew ended up in a barrel dumped
in Golden Gate Park.

However, there is hope. I never thought I'd make it, but I did. Sure, life
can be a drag at times, and no one says you won't be lonely or sexually
frustrated. Life is just life, good or bad. One thing I can tell you is
it's a hell of a lot better without a slow death from drugs.

Last, I'd like to say to you, Cintra, that I've read your column weekly,
and until now I've felt you've been fairly responsible, but printing (Carl
L.'s) letter is a bad decision. Any person who is struggling with drugs
might take that load of crap as an excuse to get loaded. His "30 seconds"
is actually 30 seconds to hell! - F. Jay Plath Oakland

Dearest "F."

Thank you for illustrating your large leaps in raised consciousness - N.A.
has done worlds of good for plenty of people that I am friends with, and
seems to be the only secure system of prying addicts away from drugs that
provides them with what they really need - a new community of people who,
like them, are having white-knuckled sufferings from the sheer force of
will it requires for them to stay away from drugs.

Carl L. had a lot to offer as far as insights on the conventional Reefer
Madness-type extremity of propagandized attitudes applied to smack and its
regular users, and provided us with an inside glimpse of someone who
prefers a carefully sustained dope habit to the straight-and-narrow, but I
also don't think he painted an irresistible picture of a way of life that
many people would readily pounce on.

Carl spent most of his letter explaining that he really enjoyed the agony
and trouble that was invariably the flip side of opiate ecstasy. Most
recovering addicts I've met don't want that kind of whiplash psychodrama
anymore and are trying instead to "study peace."

I hope Carl's thoughtful and honest letter will not provoke any dope fiends
clamoring to remain sober into barbing up a bag, but truthfully, didn't
Carl just express ideas they've all entertained themselves, anyway? Nobody
ever triumphed over anything by shutting ears to the basic, unsettling
realities.

Druggies will never truly win their battles with narcotics if they decide
to simply polarize the whole topic and decide that All Drugs Are Satan. As
I said in previous columns, that's exactly the kind of insultingly limited,
knee-jerk, Nancy Reagan, Pollyanna Fundamentalist soap-box ignorance that
is responsible for half of the drug problems today. Too many young people
who begin experimenting with drugs are amazed by the pervasive lies
surrounding the whole drug culture.

These revelations can generally be summed up into: "Wait a minute - I just
did a bunch of drugs, and I had a great time, I'm not dead, I'm not
addicted, and my life isn't totally ruined! Most of the information we get
about drugs must be tainted." This can be powerfully misleading - young
drug experimenters who decide that everything they have ever heard about
drugs must be disinformation spun around conservative societal requirements
often have to find out for themselves exactly how dangerous and
life-strangling narcotics abuse can be.

There needs to be real information, real education, and tons more study on
this subject in order to make any kind of dent in the "epidemic." Drugs are
such a ridiculous tangle of taboo at this point that there seems to be a
political agenda to every opinion.

The subject needs a big injection of truth.

Crawl out of your unlit hole and write to : CINTRA WILSON FEELS YOUR PAIN
etc. zintra@aol.com

Checked-by: (Joel W. Johnson)