Stop saying drug users have disease

Regarding the letter, “Drug treatment saves money, lives”: While taking tax money from honest taxpayers and spending it on drug offenders may save the state money, please stop describing drug users as having a disease. Just like an alcoholic who can’t stop drinking too much, these people are not afflicted with a disease.

A disease is something you get not by choice but by happenstance. It is not something you make a conscious choice to have. Drug and alcohol use is a choice. If I indulge in something that isn’t good for me and end up addicted to it, how can that be a disease?

We seem to have more sympathy for helping someone like that than someone who actually gets sick, through no fault of their own, and needs our help. So once again, let’s get this straight: Someone who sticks a needle in their arm to get high, or drinks until they pass out, does not have a disease. Cancer is a disease, Parkinson’s is a disease.

I grew up with a father who was alcoholic and at age 40 he finally turned his life around by going to Alcoholics Anonymous. He never claimed he had a disease, but he did admit to a drinking problem.

Chuck Heinitz

Snohomish

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