CAN'T BLAME PARENTS FOR KIDS' DRUG ABUSE

The June 18 letter "Parents, teens can't overlook drug-use signs" could
have been written 50 years ago, and its premise is just as wrong today as
it was then. Although the Partnership for a Drug-Free America and the U.S.
government say "parents are the anti-drug," this is proven nonsense. There
isn't a single valid study proving that parents can prevent addictions in
their kids. In fact, parents have no effect on their children's drug use.

Yet here we have a letter demonizing the parents of several teens who
recently died of prescription-drug abuse. Drug use and addiction are
genetically, not environmentally, induced. Moreover, initiation of drug use
is not due to peer pressure, stupidity or psychopathic or immoral behavior.
Drug abuse is caused by an unconscious brain mechanism. That this fact
isn't known, and if known isn't understood in this way, is the reason for
ineffective policies to prevent drug use and addiction. This letter
suggests just one of these.

Until the actual cause of drug use and addiction is understood as genetic,
biological and inexorable absent specific and well-defined recovery from
the brain disease that causes it, we will continue to see similar
drug-related problems and ignorant letters about them.

DAN F. UMANOFF, M.D.

Boynton Beach

Editor's note: Dan F. Umanoff, a non-practicing internist and
nephrologist, is founder and president of the National Association for
the Advancement and Advocacy of Addicts, a not-for-profit organization
offering educational and legal services to addicts.