DON'T DEMONIZE NARCOTICS

To the editor:

I have surveyed over the last several weeks many articles about narcotics;
and not one of them has anything positive to say about them. They are
always filled with anecdotes about stories of addiction and overdose that
are questionable at best and never present statistical information ("Opiate
habit easy to get by prescription", Feb. 11, Page 10).

There is never anything in the articles about people taking their own lives
because they cannot get access to pain medicines due to the demonization of
narcotics in the media. There are never interviews of sick patients
writhing in pain that depend upon the miracle drugs to function normally.

It's all sermons from the condescending journalists, telling us what is
best for us and blowing everything out of the proper perspective so there
can never be an honest debate on the role of narcotics in a free society as
between intelligent adults. To them, we are just babies that need someone
to look after us. Journalists at times have to be the most pompous class of
people on the face of the earth. Anyway, they couldn't be doing a better
propaganda job if they worked directly for the Bush administration. I think
it's time to write some of these papers letters and ask them to be fair in
their reporting for a change.

I'm sure most journalists go home to a nice alcoholic beverage of their
choice after a hard day's work giving everyone sermons about all of the
approved topics. I don't suppose they ever consider the hypocrisy of it all
when they engage in drinking alcohol, a drug that also has it share of
addicts and has also claimed its share of victims probably many more, in
fact, than narcotics ever have.

Actually, your article is so skewed that I thought I should add just a
little more. You imply that almost all people that regularly use OxyContin
become heroin addicts. Where are the statistics to back up your claim? To
the extent that that could be true maybe it has to do with chronic pain
patients not being able to get adequate relief because doctors are afraid
of over-prescribing thanks to biased reporting like this and the
administration's new policy of going after doctors and second-guessing
their decisions. Where are the articles about the big drug companies hiding
the results about the harmful effects of non-narcotic pain medications such
as Vioxx and Celebrex that have been shown to increase the risks of heart
problems and strokes?

Emil Crawford

La Vida Nueva del Oeste

Albuquerque, N.M.