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