Letters to the Editor: Stop making mandatory drug treatment a civil rights issue

To the editor: Steve Lopez has written another fine column on drug addiction and homelessness around MacArthur Park in Los Angeles.

From my perspective, addicts who refuse treatment deserve no sympathy. We should all feel sympathy for the police, paramedics and clean-up crews who are required to do their difficult jobs dealing with the addicts.

Lopez talked to one addict, Aaron, who has overdosed 20 times and doesn’t think rehab would work for him. He said, “People don’t want to get clean. They want to get high.” He was obviously talking about himself.

Another addict told Lopez that the best solution is mandatory detox. Some of the more overly sympathetic among us want to make mandatory detox or incarceration an unacceptable “civil rights issue.”

So now drug use is no longer a crime but a disease and “public health crisis.” OK, let’s treat the most diseased and problematic addicts who are causing this crisis and place them in a controlled facility to get them cured of their disease. Give those addicts who really want to get clean all the services and help they need.

For others, let’s not waste time, effort and resources.

Dick Helmuth, Costa Mesa