Until now she has lived, as she puts it, "in the closet," going to extremes to hide her medical needs. "I hold a responsible job and I'm respected in the community and I'm sure I would lose all that if anyone knew," she said before deciding to speak openly with a reporter. "I want to dispel biases but I'm afraid of recriminations. Imagine being a diabetic and being afraid to let anybody know."

Dr. Marcus Reidenberg, professor of clinical pharmacology at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, said: "You can't tell these people are on narcotics, because their behavior is normal. But -- it's so unfair -- they meet with disapproval from within the medical profession and without." Fear of Creating Addicts

Although doctors have used morphine for centuries to treat short-lived pain, like that experienced in surgery, they have considered the drugs dangerous for longer use, capable of turning people into addicts, who would then crave escalating doses and waste away in a stupor. But as cancer specialists began using narcotics to treat terminally ill patients with severe pain in the last decade, they noticed that many lived for years with their faculties apparently intact and without any sign of addiction.

Although narcotics change body chemistry, and the patients experience withdrawal when they stop taking the drug, the users do not display the behaviors that many specialists feel are central to addiction: loss of control over drug use, compulsive use and continued use despite harm.

Many pain specialists now believe that narcotics are not inherently addictive, although, like alcohol, they may lead to addiction in people who are predisposed; this small group of people may have an unusual genetic makeup that makes them vulnerable to addiction.

This new view appears to be supported by research that has found that animals who try cocaine will do virtually anything to get another dose, while those given liquor or narcotics show much less interest in getting more.

"Opiate addicts are fundamentally different from average medical patients" taking narcotics, Dr. Portenoy said, noting that narcotics produce a depressed rather than elated mood. "Among pain specialists, the controversy about whether opiates cause addiction has waned, and now we debate the benefit in terms of comfort and function."