REJECTING MAINTENANCE TREATMENT BECAUSE IT DOESN'T "CURE":

Another such criticism from the UK (Times OnLine, Oct 3), castigating the head of the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse because he was "...absolutely unable to explain why only 3% of the 200,000-plus addicts [in UK] are cured each year." According to the reporter, Government "... policy has created a pharmacological holding pen in which the UK addicts can be coralled..." The inability after all these decades to accept the fact that addiction is a chronic, notoriously relapsing, treatable but as yet incurable medical condition is mind-boggling.