ADDICTION A CHOICE

In his letter in the April 2 Sun, John Butler of Addictions Ontario
wrote that people with drug addictions "are people with a profound
problem, and helping them makes as much sense as helping people with
diabetes or cancer."

As a person whose two grandparents both had diabetes, and who has had
several relatives suffer and die with cancer, I would strongly disagree.

Those who suffer with these horrible diseases had no choice in getting
them, but those who suffer from addictions had a choice. They chose to
drink or do drugs, and they continue to do so.

If my grandparents could have chosen to stop having their body not
process sugar properly, or my cousin who died of cancer could have
chosen to do anything that would have prevented her from dying of
cancer a year or so after the birth of her twins, leaving her husband
and seven children without a wife and mother, I am sure she and they
would have done so. That is where the difference is found. I find Mr.
Butler's comments to be in the worst of taste.

James Vellenga

Exeter

(Just like "safe-injection" sites and free crack pipe kits)