Letter: Letters : Use and abuse

From John Haywood

Auckland, New Zealand

Andy Coghlan’s article on drugs contains the same exasperating double
standards that are usually reserved for the tabloid press
(“Highs and lows”, 25 October, p 36).

It is obvious, when reading the article, that doses of alcohol can vary from
“heavy drinking”, which the text says are harmful, to “a beer or two a day”
which “is not going to hurt you”. The text contains no such distinction for
users of illicit drugs—indeed, it seems apparent from the article that all
use is “abuse”.

In my experience as a needle-exchange worker, I found the habits of heroin
users to be as varied as those of alcohol users: opiate use can vary from four
or more times a day to fewer than once a year, and everything in between.

I also found the commentary on Toby Eisenstein’s research to be frustratingly
vague. We are told that mice die of blood poisoning after two days of morphine
doses roughly equivalent to those of a heroin addict. “Addict” is a very loose
term, and without being given specific dosages we are left to guess what this
means.

Even assuming she means the average addict, this would be hardly surprising,
given that heroin is a drug in which tolerance develops with frequent use. The
dose that a daily user would take to feel “normal” would cause chronic
constipation and drowsiness in an elephant. In any case, since the mice die
after two days and humans clearly do not, little comparison can be drawn.

It would seem to me that prejudice rather than evidence is behind the
article’s claim that “you are crazy” to “spliff up or shoot up”.