Dear editor:
Was your series "The Evil Among Us" meant to be a tongue-in-cheek inference to the disease of addiction or to the legal system that's unable to handle it?
As is almost always the case, so far you've addressed the symptoms of addiction on the individual, the family, the community. You've printed so much of that I could puke coat hangers. My hope is that your series will, by it's thankful end, address what causes an addict to seek out the euphoric effects of an addictive drug in the first place. Causes such as loss of job, poverty, loved ones. Causes such as loss of hope, the biggie. It's not all about the law, folks. You don't treat a disease by treating the symptoms, but by understanding and treating it's cause. What part of that can't you get?
Addicts don't irrepairably damage their bodies and lives for something to do or to keep law enforcement employed. They don't die because this paper prints day after day of rhetoric about the struggle law enforcement has on their hands, or punishment facing addict offenders if they have run-ins with the law instead of the causes of addiction like mental illness. Or do they?
David E. Anderson
Correy