TREATING DRUG ADDICTION

To the Editor:

Re "A Taste of His Own Medicine," by John Tierney (column, May
6):

There are few of us who work with addicts who would applaud the latest
legal troubles of Rush Limbaugh. We know that wealth does not confer
immunity to addiction. But the case highlights the injustice, waste
and failure of a drug "war" based on criminalizing the sick.

Given short shrift are the two approaches to drug abuse that have
scientific evidence of working: treatment of the sick and prevention
in the healthy.

Henry David Abraham, M.D.

Lexington, Mass.

The writer is the author of "What's a Parent to Do? Straight Talk
About Drugs and Alcohol."