USE AND ABUSE

Andy Coghlan's article on drugs contains the same exasperating double
standards that are usually reserved for the tabloid press ("Highs and
lows", 25 October, p 36).

It is obvious, when reading the article, that doses of alcohol can vary
from "heavy drinking", which the text says are harmful, to "a beer or two a
day" which "is not going to hurt you". The text contains no such
distinction for users of illicit drugs, indeed, it seems apparent from the
article that all use is "abuse".

In my experience as a needle-exchange worker, I found the habits of heroin
users to be as varied as those of alcohol users: opiate use can vary from
four or more times a day to fewer than once a year, and everything in between.

I also found the commentary on Toby Eisenstein's research to be
frustratingly vague. We are told that mice die of blood poisoning after two
days of morphine doses roughly equivalent to those of a heroin addict.
"Addict" is a very loose term, and without being given specific dosages we
are left to guess what this means.

Even assuming she means the average addict, this would be hardly
surprising, given that heroin is a drug in which tolerance develops with
frequent use. The dose that a daily user would take to feel "normal" would
cause chronic constipation and drowsiness in an elephant. In any case,
since the mice die after two days and humans clearly do not, little
comparison can be drawn.

It would seem to me that prejudice rather than evidence is behind the
article's claim that "you are crazy" to "spliff up or shoot up".

John Haywood

Auckland, New Zealand