Drug and alcohol addiction is a sad but increasingly commonplace story ("Baltimore County family struggles with impact of heroin's grip," March 21).

For a long time I believed addiction was simply a problem of a lack of willpower on the user's part. I thought it resulted from poor judgment and personal character flaws.

But as I became aware of the nefarious nature of addiction, I realized it is not a moral issue but truly an illness. I am praying for the family mentioned in your article, and for all others who are struggling with addiction.

Tom Holmes, Lutherville

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In August 2012, law enforcement stopped Mandrel Stuart, the owner of a small barbecue restaurant in Virginia, for a minor traffic violation. During the routine traffic stop, $17,550 that Stuart had earned from his restaurant and intended to use for supplies and equipment was seized.

Stuart was never charged with a crime and there was no evidence of criminal wrongdoing. He eventually got his money back, but since he lacked the cash to pay for overhead, he lost his business.

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From gay marriage to marijuana decriminalization, Maryland has been a national leader on social issues in the new century. This year, state legislators and new governor Larry Hogan can further burnish the state's reputation by setting a national example on heroin intervention and death-with-dignity legislation.

Let's start with Governor Hogan's noble call to mitigate heroin addiction and overdose deaths in Maryland. The governor brings personal experience to the issue: He lost a cousin to a heroin overdose.

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Leonhart Tells Senators of Rising Number of Overdose Deaths, Baltimore Task Force

The chief of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration put a spotlight on Maryland's heroin problems during a congressional hearing Thursday.

DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart spoke of the state's rising number of overdose deaths in testimony before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee. She said a DEA task force focusing on heroin in Baltimore is a model for other communities.

"Maryland is the perfect example when we're talking about what it's going to take for our country to actually stem the flow of the rising heroin problem," Leonhart said.

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Regarding your recent report on heroin overdoses, I applaud Gov. Larry Hogan's efforts to reduce such deaths ("Hogan wades into Maryland's long battle against heroin," Feb. 28).

As a treatment professional, we are facing a much more complex problem than drug use. Addiction is a powerful thing, and the governor's new approach is anything but more of the same. Treatment and prevention lie at the heart of the work ahead.

The advocacy community and families impacted by the opioid epidemic approached Mr. Hogan several months ago to share their concerns regarding the devastating impact addiction is having on communities. However, the early coverage of Mr. Hogan's plan harked back to his election campaign and politicized the issue.

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If Americans and political leaders honestly care to lower heroin addiction rates ("War on heroin starts with teens," Feb. 27 and "Hogan creates two panels for fight against heroin," Feb. 25), they should end cannabis (marijuana) prohibition.

An important reason to end cannabis prohibition that doesn't get mentioned is because it increases hard drug addiction rates by putting citizens who choose to use the relatively safe God-given plant into contact with people who often also sell hard drugs.

Furthermore, government claims heroin is no worse than cannabis - and that methamphetamine and cocaine are less harmful drugs - by insisting marijuana is a Schedule I substance alongside heroin, while methamphetamine and cocaine are only Schedule II substances.

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Governor Creates Panels to Focus More on Prevention and Treatment of Addiction

"We're not just reacting to the sudden surge of overdoses and overdoses deaths. We're taking a holistic approach."

With the creation of two panels devoted to combating heroin use, Gov. Larry Hogan has waded into a worsening crisis - one that has defied solutions for decades.

It once looked as if Maryland had brought some measure of control to its long-standing battle against the drug, driving down fatal overdose rates for years. In Baltimore, for example, overdose deaths plunged from more than 300 in 1999 to around 100 in 2010.

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Gov. Larry Hogan's focus on addressing the heroin epidemic ("Hogan creates two panels for fight against heroin," Feb. 25) is a testimony that the scourge of heroin and other substance addictions has garnered bipartisan concern. The next public policy strategy should translate this realization in to greater access to treatment, more targeted public awareness campaigns and increased cooperation between law enforcement, health care and mental health care providers and community leaders.

The efforts by Governor Hogan and others need to focus on teens and young adults. The Maryland Addiction Recovery Center's December, 2014 analysis shows that heroin is now one of the top five drugs abused by teens.

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I find it amusing that the Hogan administration is proposing a "study" to combat heroin addiction in Maryland ("The new face of Md.'s fight against heroin," Feb. 26).

Presumably it will complement the other "study" recently completed by the O'Malley administration. I'm sure the two of them will make lovely bookends in an office somewhere, where they will sit, gather dust and be ignored just like every other "study" the government has commissioned in its futile "war on drugs."

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In Baltimore City, approximately 20,000 people were arrested for drug-related offenses annually in 2012 and 2013; nearly three quarters for simple possession. And while there has been a great deal of discussion over the last few years regarding the incarceration of individuals for drug crimes, particularly in minority communities, the fact is that most drug cases in Baltimore do not result in confinement, except for those unfortunate enough not to have the funds to post bail while awaiting trial.

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Opioid overdose and dependence are enormous public health problems in the U.S. As The Sun reported this week, Gov. Larry Hogan has rolled out a strategy to fight heroin ("Hogan unveils plan to fight heroin," Feb. 24). A Baltimore task force is considering the city's heroin-related treatment needs. And City Health Commissioner Dr. Leana Wen has written recently in The Sun that naloxone is the key to preventing overdose deaths. Studies show that medications like Suboxone, a combination of buprenorphine and naloxone, can reduce opioid overdoses, drug use, disease transmission and criminal activity while increasing the number of patients who remain in treatment. Still, there continues to be a limited number of physicians offering buprenorphine treatment. We believe pharmacists could play a key role in providing patients access to life-saving treatment.

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We commend Maryland officials for highlighting the serious health crisis that heroin use poses for all Marylanders and promising immediate action to respond to our state's overdose epidemic.

Now is the time to invest wisely in the health care strategies that will prevent and treat opiate and other substance use disorders, even in a time of budget constraints.

While the state's investment in substance use treatment has never met the need for care, Maryland is building a solid public health and health care financing system that can be mobilized to address our overdose epidemic.

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Liberal-Conservative Coalition Could Solidify Changes to Drug Sentencing

For decades, federal prosecutors pushed for long, mandatory prison sentences for defendants convicted of drug crimes, regardless of whether the offenders were big-time narcotics kingpins or low-level dealers peddling loose joints on the street.

The result was an explosion in the nation's prison population that has left authorities scrambling to build new prisons fast enough to keep up. With some 2 million people behind bars, the U.S. incarcerates a greater proportion of its citizens than any other nation on earth.

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The Episcopal Church is investigating whether Bishop Heather Elizabeth Cook "misrepresented" her struggles with alcohol to the church. She is charged with texting while drunk driving and killing Thomas Palermo, a husband, father and friend in midlife who was peddling in his own bicycle lane when he was struck, a good man who will be missed and mourned for years to come.

There's no need for an investigation: Given her documented issues with alcohol, it's almost certain she lied just to survive; that is what alcoholics and addicts do. Though Ms. Cook hasn't publicly admitted to being either, her attorney has said she's in treatment for alcohol use and she's attended Alcoholics Anonymous in the past, the judge in her first DUI case said she had a "problem," and her church leaders have talked about her "disease of alcoholism." She may well have lied for many years about the horrible grip alcohol had on her life, as many people do - not because they are bad people but because they are trying to save their lives from totally unraveling and protect their access to the substance for which their brain rages in its cravings.

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Tsunamis of drugs have rolled into and around Maryland since the 1960s. As a retired detective, I worked the trenches of our drug war. Polls show 80 percent of the people recognize the total failure of policy.

Indeed, the police are a mosquito on the butt of an elephant. We have never, ever been able to make more than a dent in drug availability. Attorney General Brian Frosh needs to come clean to Maryland residents and admit that heroin prohibition is more the cause of deaths than a way to reduce them ("Maryland joins multistate task force to combat heroin," Feb. 12).

Howard J. Wooldridge, Buckeystown

The writer, a retired police detective, is co-founder of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.

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The Recent Spike in Heroin Overdose Deaths Is Not Just a Maryland Problem, and It Needs a Multi-State, Multi-Faceted Response

Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh's announcement last week that his office will join counterparts in five other states - Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania - to share information that helps authorities track down and prosecute heroin traffickers reflects a growing concern among state officials over the recent rise in overdose deaths from the drug. Heroin overdose deaths in Maryland have been going up every year since 2011, and the same thing is happening in neighboring states.

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Attorney General Brian E. Frosh said Thursday that his office will join counterparts in the Northeast to share information and jointly prosecute drug traffickers ("Maryland joins task force to combat heroin traffic, deaths," Feb. 13).

If interdiction and criminalization could solve the problem of drug addiction, it would have done so long ago. Mr. Frosh will waste our tax dollars, throw people in prison, spy on and harass mostly innocent people driving on the highway.

Decriminalization, harm reduction and treatment are what's needed, not politicians exploiting a crisis and making it worse.

Rob Baker, Ambler, Pa.

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Northeast States Will Share Intelligence on Drug Dealers

Calling heroin a crisis that crosses state boundaries, Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh said Thursday that his office will join counterparts in the Northeast to share information and jointly prosecute drug traffickers.

"We will have a 700-mile-long partnership," Frosh said, announcing the Bangor-to-Baltimore collaboration. "That's very important because the folks who are trading in this drug have to be tracked down.

"We'll be able to track them down whether they're moving by car up and down I-95 or by boat or by plane," he said.

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ARNOLD, MD. - Start stoner-friendly munchies stands in Colorado. Or open a lounge near a marijuana dispensary in Oregon.

Or try selling fertilizer to weed growers, dude.

"Opportunities are endless, whatever we can create in our heads," said Dean Warner, a student at Anne Arundel Community College.

The college launched Feb. 2 a class exploring business opportunities in the expanding U.S. marijuana market.

"The people that made the money in the Gold Rush were not the guys with the nuggets," said professor Shad Ewart. "It was the people who sold them the picks, the shovels, made the blue jeans, opened the banks."

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All around us, people struggle daily with problems brought on by substance use disorders - in rural, suburban and urban communities, including in Baltimore. The human, financial and emotional costs are enormous.

Fortunately, there is growing attention to the issue in Baltimore, with a concentrated focus on heroin use. A key effort in this is the task force created last fall by Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake to develop a strategy for strengthening the city's behavioral health system to ensure that treatment is both effective and available to those in need.

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