Dear summiteers:

DEAR Mr. General Secretary and Mr. President: One of the benefits of this summit can be to discover global opportunities. Alcoholism and drug addiction is an extremely serious problem in both of our countries. It is also a global problem. Our countries should take a united leadership role in addressing this problem.

In one way or another, addiction affects the quality of the daily lives of every one of our half a billion citizens. This letter is a plea for you to discuss this problem and to issue a joint statement.

We can't afford alcoholism and drug addiction. We can't see one more life needlessly lost to the abuse of alcohol and drugs nor one more innocent child killed by a drunken driver. The most frequent cause of child abuse is drunkenness.

As you are well aware, our common existence is fragile. We have entered a nuclear age. It would take only one dysfunctional alcoholic or drug addict with impaired vision to cause a nuclear accident, a military mistake, or some other global disaster.

Globally the drug trade is deadly big business, affecting foreign policy and military security. In some cities, street crime caused by drug abuse has become a war between addicts and the general population. Daily the picture worsens.

Our respect, our thoughts, our prayers are with you each day during the summit. May history remember these valuable days as a summit for sobriety.

Sincerely,

Friends of the Soviet-US Joint Conference on Alcoholism and Drug Addiction.

[This letter is to appear in Komsomolskaya Pravda in the USSR.]