Letter to the Editor: Mental Health Models

To the editor: Re “Voiceless, Defenseless and a Source of Cash” (front page, April 30): For too long, the suffering of the mentally ill, some of whom are addicted to drugs, has been someone else’s problem. Deinstitutionalization was the right thing...

Letter to the Editor: Staying Clean

Peggy Orenstein’s cover article “Staying Clean” drew praise from rehab providers and former users confirming that, as reported, there is no quick fix in treating addiction and no guaranteed cure. Below is the response by Dr. Peter Provet, among the...

Letter to the Editor: OxyContin Abuse

To the editor: Monitoring prescriptions of OxyContin sounds like a good place to start to prevent increased abuse (“Few State Track Prescriptions as Way to Prevent Overdoses,” front page, Dec. 21). But we must also increase drug treatment programs and...

Letter to the Editor: Addicted to OxyContin

To the Editor: An important concern missing from the increasing attention paid to abuse of the powerful painkiller OxyContin is the treatment needs of the abuser. Whether or not Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of the drug (news article, Aug. 13), speeds up development...

Prison isn’t the Answer for Darryl

Darryl Strawberry will be sentenced in Tampa tomorrow for violating probation, and a lot of people are rooting for heavy punishment. The details of his seemingly fruitless battle with drug addiction have left the public understandably fed up. To some, the downward...