Drug abuse and the Michael Valva murder case

Show compassion about drug abuse

A reader’s asking why society chooses to “coddle” drug abusers illustrates a lack of understanding about addiction and the continuing stigma that exists about addicts [“Stop enabling those who abuse opioids,” Letters, April 10].

Addiction is a mental illness that lives in the brain stem and serves a critical role in regulating certain involuntary actions, including one’s heartbeat and breathing. Many in our society treat addiction as a moral issue and pawn it off on law enforcement to control. The average stay in jail is no more than 14 days.

Addicts are left to detox alone, outside of medical supervision. The process can be violent and lead to death if not monitored by medical professionals. The addict is released when serotonin levels are at their lowest, leading to a high rate of relapse.

It takes an average of 14 to 16 months of sobriety for an addict’s brain to balance serotonin levels to that of a typical brain, yet most insurance companies will pay for less than 30 days of treatment.

How do I know? My son died of fentanyl poisoning and, yes, he was an addict. His addiction began with a prescription.

— Nancy Anthony, Sayville

Apparently, the reader is not a parent of an addict, nor has he lost a child to addiction.

My son did not abuse opioids to “party.” He became addicted after an accident when he was 15 and was prescribed long-term opiates that were supposedly “nonaddictive.”

My son fought hard to be free of this demon. I watched this drug take him down in the most painful way one could imagine. He fought hard for six years until finally succumbing to his addiction — a mixture of 98% fentanyl and 2% cocaine.

As a parent who has lost her child to this addiction, I found the reader’s comments to be uneducated and painful. People need to be educated on addiction and not group all users into one box. For some, it might have been a bad choice. For others, they had no choice.

— Karen Bergmann, Port Jefferson

Many of us have become dismayed by the huge swath of folks in this country who seem to lack important human traits, including compassion, empathy and forgiveness. It almost seems this reader is against using Narcan to save lives because these people don’t deserve it.

Language that describes these people as “choosing” to “party” on “experimental whims” is repulsive and shows no understanding of addiction or mental illness.

My only child was not an addict, but he suffered for years with borderline personality disorder. He, alongside my wife and me, fought bravely for years but ultimately took his life. Some have seen this as a cowardly decision, but nothing could be further from the truth.

Something broke in his brain and could not be fixed. The reader’s brain might not have an addiction or suicidal tendency, but here, instead, his brain “chose” cruelty.

— Jeff Bollbach, Freeport

Not all drug abusers  choose self-destruction. They may have become addicted and had their lives ruined by a pharmaceutical company that pushed addictive drugs to “heal” an individual’s injury via sports, a car accident, etc.

Should we not help those caught in a web of an addiction not of their own making? I’ll sign up to have Narcan readily available for these people — for all of us, the innocent and even those not so innocent.

When someone overdoses, we don’t know how that person became addicted. Let’s try to save every person we can.

— Bill Donnellan, Baiting Hollow

Never let another Valva case happen

Now that Angela Pollina has been found guilty of murdering Thomas Valva, we can say that justice has been served [“Pollina gets 25 to life for Thomas’ murder,” News, April 12]. It’s hoped that she and Michael Valva will be imprisoned for the rest of their lives.

Throughout these past few years, it has been so easy to feel anger and hatred toward these two people. What is not so easy is to feel what underlies those negative sentiments.

I keep finding myself trying to imagine what Thomas Valva felt as he experienced the extreme emotional and physical abuse at the hands of these two adults. No one kept him warm and safe and fed and clean and loved.

He and his brother Anthony dealt with this alone. What did they feel? Terror? Fear? Hopelessness? It hurts to walk down that road. I hope Thomas’ suffering is felt by enough people in power that they make sure this never happens again.

— Linda Durnan, Wading River

Suffolk Supreme Court Judge Timothy Mazzei overstepped his bounds in his verbal judgment of the defendant. She committed a horrific crime and deserved her punishment.

However, the judge said his “only regret” was that he could not confine her in the same unheated room with no accessories. I could understand a lay person wishing this but not a Suffolk Supreme Court judge.

The Eighth Amendment clearly protects us from cruel and unusual punishment. A judge should be aware of such protection and not put forth his own prejudices. He is there to protect our rights.

— John Boughal, Bayport

Angela Pollina’s attorney, Matthew Tuohy, tried to explain her testimony when she said, “Yes, I was evil.” He said, “I think what she wanted to say is she’s not an evil person, but the acts of putting the boys in the garage became evil acts . . . She’s not a lawyer; she did the best she could.” Sorry, but her statement needs no explanation. She is evil, pure and simple.

— Farley Kamhi, Carle Place

CPS actions reflect view of school staff

It is awful and tragic that this beautiful child, Thomas Valva, died. Child Protective Services workers are underpaid, overworked and poorly trained [“Data: Caseloads still high for Suffolk CPS,” News, April 13].

That school officials were not listened to enough says a lot about how much school staffers’ opinions are valued.

I think it will never come out that if Michael Valva had not been a police officer, the response would have been different.

— Charles Greco, Eastport

Retired baby boomers with decades of experience working in corporate positions could be considered as “inside assistants” to CPS field staff, keeping records up to date, etc.

There may be myriad reasons, such as privacy laws, which could make this suggestion moot, but it is a dire situation that needs out-of-the-box thinking and solutions.

— Angela Calitri, East Marion