PAIN, ILLNESS, STRESS LEAD TO SUBSTANCE DEMAND, ABUSE

Dear Editor:

In a May 9 letter, a former nurse who is married to a judge and former
district attorney expresses her frustration with those who
self-medicate recreationally or for pain. With all due respect to the
author, she should know better.

It has been demonstrated historically that alcohol prohibition
exacerbated the very same problems that she describes. Furthermore,
there is substantial evidence that the current drug war has similarly
increased the national per capita homicide rate, not to mention teen
huffing and hard drug use.

Perhaps a judge's wife and former nurse might be blinded by the family
checkbook to this fact, but it is pain, illness and stress, not drugs
that lead to social decay. Those who seek relief deserve our respect,
and not a cultural system that increases demand and encourages abuse.

If health care and law enforcement workers faced arrest for consuming
caffeine or aspirin, their work would suffer, and emergency rooms
would fill with jittery cops, judges and nurses.

The very thought is almost enough to make one's head
ache.

JOSE MELENDEZ

DeLand, Fla.