Roots of Addiction

* “Rethinking Tactics in War on Drugs” (June 3) is a step in the right direction. However, focusing on the reconciliation of justice and mercy may keep us from seeing the roots of the drug problem. Our society unconsciously plants the seeds of the crop it is trying to destroy. The left hand sows, the right hand mows, so to speak, without seeing a connection between the two.

Our culture promotes addiction by undermining our ability to choose that which benefits and strengthens us and to reject that which weakens us. Essential for wholeness and well-being, discrimination is the nemesis of America’s economy-based, consumer-oriented value system. The blurring of needs and wants serves the economy but robs us of the clarity and strength we need to solve critical problems.

We can control what our culture sows by acting more discriminately as individuals and by resisting the addiction-forming pressures of our society. The harvest will be better for it.

JOHN D. LELAND

Pasadena

*

The Rev. Scott Richardson perpetuated a very old--and very wrong--myth when he claimed, “When it comes to addiction, the rich go to Betty Ford, the poor go to county jail.” Fact: Only a tiny minority (fewer than 1%) of patients at the nonprofit Betty Ford Center are rich and/or famous. There are construction workers and homemakers and students and doctors and nurses and members of the clergy. Addiction doesn’t discriminate; alcoholism and other drug dependencies are diseases that recognize no socioeconomic, racial or ethnic boundaries. Neither does the Betty Ford Center.

The cost of an average 28-day stay at the Betty Ford Center is about $12,000. That’s significantly less than half what some for-profit institutions charge.

RUSS PATRICK

Los Angeles