Pubdate: Sat, 09 Aug 2003
Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (WI)
Copyright: 2003 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Contact:  http://www.jsonline.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/265
Author:  Dave Michon
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v03/n1174/a06.html?1109

DRUG ADDICTS WRITER'S OUTRAGE MISDIRECTED

Regarding Conni Doll's Aug. 4 letter "Some take advantage without wanting 
help": Hogwash! Despite the fact that the government's own drug abuse 
research institute has for years been telling politicians that addiction is 
a "brain disease," with unique genetic markers, those same pusillanimous 
politicians in 1996 declared that addiction was the one disease for which 
federal disability would no longer be paid.

Similar demagoguery resulted in welfare being denied to addicts. Now, 
politicians have gone so far as to make college unavailable to students 
who, far from being addicted, may have the dream of college denied by a 
simple pot possession conviction. I suppose that is why no new colleges are 
being built while prison construction fouls the countryside.

I don't know where the addicts whom Doll has "seen," and who she says are 
receiving so much taxpayer largess, reside, but they don't live in the 
United States. I rather think they really only reside within her narrow 
view of humanity.

It's a pity that Doll and others of her ilk are so worried that a suffering 
addict may get some food and shelter. They should instead focus their 
outrage on the taxpayer fortunes lost to corporate and insider deals done 
with wholly owned politicians.

Dave Michon

Eau Claire
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom