To the Editor:

“When Opioid Addicts Find an Ally in Blue” (news article, June 13) celebrates that the police have begun to protect drug users rather than reflexively prosecute them. In historical context, this development is indeed salubrious — but unfortunately the transformation reflects more a new face of addiction than a reconfiguration of law enforcement attitudes.

As an assistant federal public defender, I regularly appear in court on behalf of young men, sometimes still teenagers, accused of selling opiates implicated in a fatal overdose. The families of the deceased, like their loved ones, have in my experience always been white and articulate. My clients, typically, are neither.

To move past the follies of the drug wars, it is not enough for law enforcement to feel sympathy for a new generation of more demographically relatable addicts. The police must learn instead to realize that it is not sufficient to “tell a midlevel dealer from a user needing help.” Between these easy categories lies the reality of the poor, petty seller who distributes drugs in many cases because doing so is the only way to support his own addiction — the low-level dealer needing help.

JAMES MAGUIRE, NEW HAVEN

To the Editor:

Re “Opioid Crisis and Lobbying Give Drug a Boost That Tests Don’t” (front page, June 11):

Your reporting highlights how the stigmatization of methadone and buprenorphine has led to poor outcomes when it comes to treating substance use disorders. Our research has shown that the aggressive marketing of Vivitrol — among other factors — has led to the denial of other forms of treatment, even when those treatments might be more effective.