KEEPING ADDICTS ALIVE IS BIG STEP TOWARD RECOVERY

It's amazing that Michael W. Gimbel, a former Baltimore County substance
abuse director, denigrates overdose prevention efforts as "not the best way
to get addicts clean and sober and back into society."

These are lofty goals, indeed, and ones worth pursuing. But they certainly
won't be achievable once the user is dead.

Alcoholics Anonymous has had it right for decades - when responding to a
treatable but incurable disease such as alcoholism (or any drug
dependency), one must measure success one day at a time.

Dr. Robert Newman, New York