Wreckage of ‘war'

In response to articles such as “The Faces of Heroin,” Oct. 5, I was both
saddened and angered by the gullible naive viewpoints of the representative
sample of the “white,” “affluent middle class” interviewed. Not regarding
their apparent dismay in discovering their child’s “drug use”, but in their
blind, uneducated acceptance of the governmental and religious hypocrisies
that created and nurtured the heroin problem.

The salient “abuse” occurring is in the gross misapplication and larcenous
funneling of taxpayer billions into the “war on drugs” that begets a black
market heroin that kills your kids.

It is time for all you “upper middle class” parents who are nursing an
evening cocktail (your drug of choice), apparently oblivious to the
benefits you derive from the historical repeal of alcohol prohibition, to
reassess your voting habits. Every time you vote for a politician who is
“hard on drugs” and not concerned about researching alternatives, another
nail is hammered into the coffin of one of your young. Humans always will
be interested in drugs. It is our government’s responsibility to ensure
safety and quality of the drugs we take, not put us in prison or allow us
to die from using them. Billions of dollars but, more importantly, your
children’s precious lives are on the line.

Brian Wallace, Dallas

The Swiss Way

Your Oct. 3 editorial criticizing the Swiss for ratifying what was an
experimental program to supply heroin, methadone and clean needles to
heroin addicts raises some important issues.

The Swiss program has two purposes. First, to help addicts to become
useful, employed citizens rather than convicts.

You report that 141,000 people in the U.S. began using heroin for the first
time last year. In contrast, during the threeyear Swiss program, crime
decreased 90 percent among participants, new HIV and hepatitis cases
dropped markedly, the number of addicts in the program capable of working
doubled, and the individual heroin use and dosages decreased.

By a wide margin, the Swiss rejected a system like ours, which has the
effect of trying to treat heroin addicts by sending them to prison. The
rate of incarceration of heroin addicts in the U.S. is seven times higher
than in Switzerland and growing.

The Swiss program keeps drug pushers out of the schools. A similar program
here may have saved the children and young adults in Plano who died from
heroin in recent months.

John D. Gourley, Dallas