I am writing to express a strong sense of disappointment over the recent article "Mon Valley leaders vow push to finish Expressway." [PG East, March 29] Reasonable individuals can disagree on the merit of building the Mon-Fayette Expressway and I certainly hold the views of my fellow mayors in high esteem.

However, I doubt Mr. [Joe] Kirk [of the Mon-Fayette Expressway Association] would embrace the MFX so heartily if it ran through Mt. Lebanon. For more than 30 years, the specter of the MFX has kept wide swaths of property in a perpetual state of incremental decline or outright abandonment and dilapidation.

The MFX is tantamount to environmental racism. Only in a predominately poor African-American community with the highest rate of childhood asthma in the region would anyone dare suggest running a four-lane interstate. So, while we're cutting public transportation routes in this community, we're also tasked to absorb an interstate; never mind that many residents cannot afford to maintain a vehicle.

Contrary to the article's tone, there is no consensus on the MFX here in the Mon-Valley, especially in Braddock, the community that would bear the highest burden.

JOHN FETTERMAN

Mayor of Braddock

Lowering drinking age won't create responsible drinkers

In her March 22 column, Ruth Ann Dailey suggested lowering the drinking age "to foster responsible drinkers." Her simplistic approach does a disservice to an extremely complicated topic.

As the director of POWER, an organization that provides alcohol and other drug treatment and support to women struggling with substance abuse, I strongly disagree with her suggestion.

Ms. Dailey acknowledges that perhaps most people drink to self-medicate. This notion is well supported by research and is particularly relevant for women, but how would lowering the drinking age change that fact in any way?

She also says that it's human nature that makes the forbidden more alluring. I think we're way past that simple explanation given that 23 percent of full-time students meet the diagnosis for substance abuse compared to 2 1/2 percent of the general population.

Ms. Dailey goes on to ask if adults are fostering unhealthy attitudes toward alcohol among our young people and links the increase in use to the history of Prohibition. Yes, we as adults are fostering unhealthy attitudes, not because it's "underground" or "forbidden," but because we have created a culture that includes alcohol and other drugs in almost every aspect of our lives.

Alcohol and other drugs change the way we feel, think and act. If we're unlucky enough to be biologically predisposed to addiction, what happens after our first use may be totally out of our control, whether that first experience happens at age 14, 18 or 21.

While I laud Ms. Dailey for putting the issue of addiction and its causes on the table for discussion, she would have done more justice to the millions of individuals who suffer from the disease and their devastated families by challenging all of us to think and act creatively as we seek to find effective, lasting approaches to this frightening, modern-day epidemic.

ROSA DAVIS

Executive Director, POWER

Point Breeze