To the Editor:
Re “A Drug User’s ‘Paradise’” (Science Times, Aug. 1):
Portland, Ore., is not a drug user’s paradise. The people who are struggling with addiction, homelessness and mental illness in Portland and other cities in America are barely surviving, and more will die without access to treatment services, affordable housing, and medical and mental health care.
The citizens of Portland who voted in favor of Measure 110 understood this to be an approach that would decriminalize the possession of small amounts of drugs and direct revenue from marijuana sales to fund drug treatment and recovery services. This is a step in the right direction, but it is not enough.
Drug treatment is not a “soft” option. It is a rigorous, structured process that addresses the underlying issues of a person’s addiction, including trauma, mental illness and medical concerns. When operated by trained staff, with the provision of medication-assisted treatment, primary health care services, and connections to jobs and housing, treatment is the most effective solution.
Compared with the cost of lives lost and the increased burdens on police, prison systems, emergency health care and other essential services, treatment is also an investment at a bargain price that we cannot afford to pass up.
I urge the city of Portland and other cities in America to invest in comprehensive drug treatment and recovery services. Treatment is proven to be the only sustainable way to effectively address addiction and save lives.
Peter Provet
New York
The writer is president and C.E.O. of Odyssey House.
To the Editor:
This in-depth description of life on the street for fentanyl users should dispel any notions that people with substance use disorder are enjoying their drugs and just looking to get high.
Your article reveals the tragic lives of people whose brains and psyches have been hijacked by fentanyl, xylazine and high-grade methamphetamine.
Our task at the national, state and community levels is to provide evidence-based harm reduction, treatment, and recovery services and opportunities.
Don Mathis
Havre de Grace, Md.
The writer is a peer recovery specialist at Voices of Hope Maryland.
To the Editor:
Re “The Hard-Drug Decriminalization Disaster,” by Bret Stephens (column, Aug. 2):
Mr. Stephens is to be commended for a balanced view of the effects of decriminalization of some drug use in Portland. It would certainly be possible to indulge in greater gloating over what appears to be a failed “liberal” policy. But his discussion leads to a way of thinking about the issue that does not require the liberal/conservative dichotomy — considering approaches to drug abatement as “experiments” in social policy.
It seems clear that the “experiment” with draconian police action has not worked and has had some disastrous side effects. It seems that the policy of providing methadone in situations with medical control has had some degree of success. It seems that harm reduction (provision of clean needles), while still intensely debated, has had a salubrious effect. It seems that drug treatment programs are of value, but scaling up is a problem. And finally, it seems that the version of decriminalization that Portland chose was a failed “experiment.”
The point is that we have not run out of “experiments.” In view of the extraordinary morbidity and mortality associated with (currently) illegal drug use, and its role as a money magnet, we should stop pretending that we know what to do, and actually find out.
Richard Rothenberg
Atlanta
The writer is professor emeritus at the School of Public Health, Georgia State University, and the Emory University School of Medicine.
To the Editor:
Bret Stephens conflates Oregon’s acute problems since drug decriminalization with recent challenges faced by Portugal to argue that decriminalization is a failed concept as a general policy measure.
The United States can only wish that it were facing Portugal’s “problems.” There were 109,680 drug overdose deaths in the U.S. in 2022. In 2021, the most recent year for which official data are available, Portugal reported 74 overdose fatalities.
Portugal successfully decriminalized drugs over two decades ago. Its approach differs significantly from Oregon’s. Focusing on effective treatment, training, and social and professional integration, Portugal emphasizes police involvement with escalating civil consequences and legal sanctions for recidivism and noncompliance with law enforcement citations to participate in dissuasion procedures.
As the U.S. suffers through the worst overdose epidemic in its history, all sides should look to Portugal with a sense of humility rather than twisting data points to support ideological agendas.
Miguel Moniz
Brandon Del Pozo
Traci Green
Josiah Rich
The writers conduct medical and policy research on opioid overdose and addiction in the U.S. and Portugal.
In Tune With Nature, Among the Butterflies
He proposes that simply carrying the tools we use to find our subjects produces a state of mind that results in a heightened acuity for our environment generally. This seems to be true for me. Taking a flashlight out at night to search for caterpillars opens up a rich animal life that happens while we sleep.
Over the decades, the best tool of all has been a camera slung around my neck. To this day, the minute I put the camera on, as with the author and his net, I feel a change in my alertness and notice all kinds of behaviors and other details in my surroundings: for example, a monarch laying a tiny egg on the underside of a milkweed leaf, or a cabbage butterfly seemingly learning to extract nectar from flowers.
My hobby became a rewarding passion and eventually a career. Thus can the lives of amateur and professional naturalists alike be enriched.
Alcinda C. Lewis
Boulder, Colo.
The writer is a retired animal behaviorist.
To the Editor:
Lewis Hyde gave readers a lyrical self-portrait of “walking with the net.” Today, he walks observantly in nature, often catching and releasing butterflies, rather than making a collection of dead insects as he’d done in the past.
Growing up in Connecticut in the 1950s and ’60s, I too was interested in catching and killing all manner of Lepidoptera, and had many mounted collections; one in a homemade frame was destroyed by the family cat.
What Mr. Lewis does not mention is the decimation of butterfly populations in the Northeast over the decades. Sure, I still see butterflies like tiger swallowtails and silver-spotted skippers on my bee balm, but only a small fraction of those I avidly pursued in yesteryear.
Penelope Ross
Westport, Conn.
U.S. Stakes in Ukraine
To the Editor:
The strategic interests of the United States in seeing Ukraine win are slight; the strategic interests of the United States in seeing Russia lose are huge. What this means is that it is not a serious problem for the United States that the anticipated Ukraine offensive has not advanced quickly.
What counts is that Russia is depleting its resources to the point that it will not be an international threat. A drawn-out stalemate, while creating misery in Ukraine, should not be equated with a defeat for the United States.
David M. Dorsen
Washington