GUTSY LONGSHOREMAN DAD HAS RIGHT IDEA

To the editor:

Re: "A family addiction," June 1.

Mike Howell's very well-written, poignant piece on Mr. Petek's
children was a moving journey through one man's hell.

But how many other parents similarly conflicted by their children's
addictions think like Mr. Petek?

The public is being hood-winked by the misguided harm reduction
fashionistas, like our bumbling mayor, who will have you believe that
the studies "supporting" drug replacement therapy are so very
conclusive-when they are most certainly not.

As for the self-proclaimed "Centre for Excellence," which also
subscribes to these bent drug replacement hypotheses, one can only
conclude that, they, too, in their over-zealousness to reduce
infectious diseases, have embraced inconclusive therapies as an
expedient means to an end.

Gone is the baby, along with the bathwater.

Apparently, you have to be a gutsy, emotional, committed longshoreman
like Mr. Petek, to understand how to deal with the Downtown Eastside.

"Force kids and adults into treatment, sentence every drug dealer to
five years in a work camp and get rid of injection sites and heroin
trials."

Amen, brother, Amen.

A.G. (ALEX) TSAKUMIS

Vancouver