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Addicts need treatment

The Spokesman-Review

County Commissioner Mark Richard said that the health district’s methadone clinic has been treating too many patients on state assistance (“Methadone cuts hurt,” June 30).

What an odd concept! Do we treat too many patients on state assistance with insulin?

Perhaps the hurt methadone clinic patients were not entirely articulate as they explained the suffering they will face when they are cut off of the medicine that treats their chronic disease of addiction. They will get very sick, just like a diabetic patient who is cut off of insulin.

In my opinion, it is wrong to judge one health risk behavior as worse than another. We don’t take insulin away from diabetic patients who go off their diets. What justifies taking methadone away from patients who have the disease of addiction?

Dr. Kim Marie Thorburn

Spokane

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