NARCOTICS ARE COMMONLY USED

As a trained pharmacy technician I take offence at your statement
that heroin addicts in the Downtown Eastside are: "in a real sense,
paying for the bombs that kill our soldiers in Afghanistan."

Our society ingests huge amounts of narcotics, all derived from opium
and all used for moderate-to-severe pain.

Common side-effects include constipation, respiratory depression,
sedation (used to treat neurological and psychiatric patients) and a
sense of well being.

This last side-effect causes some narcotic drugs to be more
psychologically addictive than others. The several different types of
natural opiate-like receptors in the body are why some people do not
become addicted and others do.

So please, give these unfortunate people in the Downtown Eastside a
break as they have enough problems of their own to deal with. All of
us should take responsibility for using narcotics, especially when
the good outweighs the bad.

I don't agree with financing the Taliban, and they should be ousted
from Afghanistan, but our medical society will still need opium.

Maybe we can begin to manufacture more of these drugs synthetically.

Mary Supple

Vancouver