Heroin should be attacked as a medical problem

The show "20/20" did a documentary of America's heroin addiction earlier this month. I commend them for doing so even though I couldn't help but get the impression the underlying theme was "now drugs are affecting REAL people," e.g., white, suburbia, etc.

There were, however, two insightful points discussed. One where the person who was the focus of the documentary said, "It's not about getting high, it's about just not feeling sick anymore," i.e., physical withdrawal.

For those who are still in the camp of believing addicts are just in the midst of an indulgent, hedonistic adventure chasing that eternal "high," remember that it's not the seeking of pleasure, it's about the prevention of misery.

Debate, if you must, the how's and why's of getting to that point, but understand that it's not about indulgence any longer, and it probably never was. So when the naïve ask, and I quote, "Why would anyone do all that just to stick a needle in their arm," understand it's not a matter of turning off a switch.

Understand there has never been a third-grader who stood up in class to say, "Someday I wanna trade sex for drugs" or "I wanna pawn my dad's old pocket watch for drugs."

The second point was when the DEA finally admitted, "We cannot arrest our way out of this problem, it's a medical problem."

No truer words spoken!

For those of you who don't know, the "War on Drugs" is the biggest failure and the biggest fraud in America today, but that's for another letter.

Arrest! Arrest! Fits good talking points but it is utter idiocy. We over-arrest in this country anyway.

I wish America would declare "War on Barbecued Ribs and Blues Music" because it seems whatever we "declare war" on, we create more, e.g., drugs, poverty, terror, etc.

Dutch Van Alstin

Sarasota

This story was originally published March 27, 2016 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Heroin should be attacked as a medical problem ."