Day One Story Good but Placement Is Questioned

Thank you so much for the much deserved attention to the local heroes at Day One who are on the front line in Pasadena’s battle in the war on drugs (Times, Feb. 25). People like Francisca Neumann are doing more to get kids off drugs than are people like William Bennett. Now all we have to do is get people who have power, like Mr. Bennett, to concentrate their efforts on supporting people like Ms. Neumann.

The time is also appropriate to repeat the proper credit you gave to enlightened corporations, like Kaiser Permanente, who realize that part of the privilege of operating in a free society is the responsibility to help care for the citizenry of that society.

But why was an article on a subject of such societal import hidden on Page 2 next to the public auction ads, when last week (Feb. 18) you had on the front page (with a picture, no less) an article on a book about the trees of San Marino? In your Day One article Mr. Ibrahim Naeem spoke of the “tremendous denial” that exists in people’s minds about the pervasiveness of drug abuse. As long as the trees of San Marino get top billing over the problem of drug abuse and programs like Day One, we, as a society, will continue to be in a state of denial.

COLIN S. JACKSON, Pasadena