DRUG ADDICTS WRITER'S OUTRAGE MISDIRECTED

Regarding Conni Doll's Aug. 4 letter "Some take advantage without wanting
help": Hogwash! Despite the fact that the government's own drug abuse
research institute has for years been telling politicians that addiction is
a "brain disease," with unique genetic markers, those same pusillanimous
politicians in 1996 declared that addiction was the one disease for which
federal disability would no longer be paid.

Similar demagoguery resulted in welfare being denied to addicts. Now,
politicians have gone so far as to make college unavailable to students
who, far from being addicted, may have the dream of college denied by a
simple pot possession conviction. I suppose that is why no new colleges are
being built while prison construction fouls the countryside.

I don't know where the addicts whom Doll has "seen," and who she says are
receiving so much taxpayer largess, reside, but they don't live in the
United States. I rather think they really only reside within her narrow
view of humanity.

It's a pity that Doll and others of her ilk are so worried that a suffering
addict may get some food and shelter. They should instead focus their
outrage on the taxpayer fortunes lost to corporate and insider deals done
with wholly owned politicians.

Dave Michon

Eau Claire