The Media Newspapers

Blame Does Not Benefit Society LTE

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Ref: Myles F. Jacques 12/4/2002 Choice has consequences

Editor:

In responding to Jerome Kukaitis’ Nov. 27 letter regarding Mayor Wiercinski’s comment that “Hell would freeze over first before a methadone clinic opens in Dickson City” Mr. Jacques misses several vital points.

1. Addiction is a medical condition. It is a brain disease and like many medical conditions their are behavioral aspects and physiological. We do not place blame on other diseases. The doctor does not ask the skier who brakes his leg if he was skiing dangerously, or ask the diabetic how much sugar they have been eating or individual with skin cancer if they used sun blocker and how many hours they sat in the sun. No the condition is treated and should be treated early as possible because that benefits the community and public health for everyone. Opiate addiction is no different. When will society stop blaming and scapegoating opiate dependent persons? Not only do they suffer but their family and community is greatly harmed by such beliefs. It is for the benefit of all that everyone in the community be given the best chances possible and that includes addicts. Who has not made a bad choice in their life at least once?

2. But even if you despise addicts as society has been taught it costs the community greatly for every untreated addicts. The costs rise to the hundreds of thousands of dollars per addicts depending on the region. Methadone treatment gives back $15 to the community for every dollar spent and that is an incredible return rate but it still does not compare to the lives saved and the families restored.

3. It is time to stop pointing fingers and save lives. Our children will depend on it because addiction does not go away it grows. The next generation it could be your grandchildren that need help.

4. Addicts are not some alien from an unknown planet. You just don’t know it because of the stigma and prejudice most opiate dependent persons do a very good job of hiding it. We are your family, your neighbors and friends. And it is in no ones interest to consider blame or choice.

Joycelyn Woods

President

National Alliance of Methadone Advocates

Phone: (212) 595-6262

Choice has consequences LTE

Scranton Times, 12-04-02

Editor: Jerome Kukaitis’ Nov. 27 letter regarding Mayor Wiercinski’s comment about a methadone clinic in Dickson City misses a vital point.

His letter, while well taken, misses the element of choice. Those junkies choose to take drugs. No one forced them.

No one with a debilitating or fatal disease chose to have it. Did they have the chance to say “No?” Junkies have that choice and they choose to say “yes.” Once hooked or in trouble with the law, they expect the rest of society to bail them out.

Yes, families are ruined. Death is a potential consequence. Prison is a possibility. But it still comes down to choice.

Many years ago my dad told me, “for every choice you make there are consequences, some good, some bad but always consequences.”

If the mayor shows no empathy for those who are afflicted with the drug disease he is within his rights. He is looking out for the people he was elected to serve. You certainly aren’t going to get the “cream of the crop” going to a clinic in Dickson. I, as a former resident of Dickson City, would be behind him 100 percent. He made his choice, good or bad, but his choice. He is saying “no,” just as those addicts should have before they became addicts.

Lives can be saved, as pointed out in Kukaitis’ letter, simply by saying “no” in the first place. Again, it’s a choice with consequences. There are no free rides in the world.

While I recognize the need for treatment, I have little empathy or sympathy for those who have made a bad choice. There is enough information out there about the consequences of using drugs. The information simply states, these are the consequences, the choice is yours. Kukaitis’ letter states that the “sick are being condemned” but they have condemned themselves by saying “yes” instead of “no.” A choice, a consequence.

Myles F. Jacques

Pleasant Mount