Please be mindful of your potential to frighten people unnecessarily (Report, 1 August). Fentanyl is indeed between 100 and 150 times as potent as morphine but when used in the microgram doses available in commercial products it is as safe as any other strong opioid for the management of severe pain whether post-operative, chronic or towards the end of life. Clearly lacing street drugs with this molecule is highly dangerous but a broad-brush approach is unhelpful. Healthcare professionals work hard to develop a trusting relationship with the people they are caring for. Many are fearful of strong opioid medicines but we know how to use them to good effect and it would be tragic if front-page articles worried some enough to stop taking it and revert to being in pain.
Margaret Gibbs
(Palliative care pharmacist) Bromley, Kent
• Recent Guardian reports rightly highlight current concerns regarding a dangerous spike in the illegal use by addicts of the synthetic opioid fentanyl. While this publicity is justified, I am concerned that there is a danger of demonising a drug whose medical use in the management of severe pain is vital. During the last few years of her life, my wife Christine, who had severe multiple sclerosis, was prescribed fentanyl skin patches. These proved the only effective treatment to counter the pain created by an increasingly twisted and immobile body. Without this vital drug, I shudder to think how much more difficult her final years might have been.
Conrad Hodgkinson
Sheffield
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