Provide Treatment, Not Urine Tests

* Martin Sheen’s compassion “for people addicted to drugs and for their families” (Commentary, Aug. 7) is laudable, but his preoccupation with urine testing is not constructive. The bottom line: We must treat patients, not urines.

Addiction is indeed a disease, but it is irrational to punish individuals for manifesting the behavior that defines that disease. It is particularly inappropriate to oblige treatment providers to notify law enforcement agencies of positive urine results, knowing that this will lead to incarceration.

Sheen’s assumption that the threat of incarceration is a prerequisite for effective treatment of addicts is dead wrong. It is a myth that addicts don’t want help and that voluntary treatment is doomed to fail. Before imposing services on people who may not want them, need them or benefit from them, one should ensure that care is available for everyone who seeks it. California--and every other state of the nation--has a tragically long way to go before that objective is met.

ROBERT G. NEWMAN MD, MPH

New York City

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Sheen seems to be the only one who worries that the Prop. 36 issue is about drug courts. It’s about the minuscule number of offenders who get to go to a drug court. Also do we really need judges acting as probation officers and drug counselors? We need probation officers trained as drug counselors. Since the best drug counselors are recovered addicts, that is who we need to manage all recovery programs.

REXFORD STYZENS

Long Beach