CRYING WOLF ABOUT METH ABUSE?

To the Editor:

John Tierney's column about methamphetamines includes unhappy truths
for those of us who have friends and family struggling with addiction.
We are caught between the two camps: one claiming that drugs and
substance abusers are evil and one claiming that drugs have benefits.
Neither side gets to the heart of the matter.

Take a trip to any rehabilitation center or prison, and you'll meet
with many young people whose lives have been derailed by substances
they thought were benign.

More often than not, they are battling depression, anxiety or
psychosis, which may have been present before the drug use or caused
by it; medical science is still unraveling the relationship.

It is a hard road to recovery, and there are too few options for
adequate treatment (just ask your H.M.O.). That is the real tragedy in
the war on drugs.

Diane Rollert

Concord, Mass., Aug. 9, 2005