Letters: Avoid steroids - and ALL unnatural drugs

ALEX Rodriguez admits that he took steroids - like every other athlete from bodybuilders to boxers to weightlifters to football players since these substances first became available.

We live in a society that promotes the use of chemical medicines. Athletes happen to be physically superior but otherwise average citizens. And the vast majority of Americans believe that chemical medicines are their keys to health. No one knows, or cares, that when we use what the earth has provided, the need for chemical medicines disappears.

Pharmaceutical companies don't make money from plant materials or other natural substances until they alter them, to produce profitable, but harmful, chemical substances.

Once we understand that chemical medicines cause more harm than good, except in the most dire situations, we (and the athletes) will understand that we can strengthen our bodies without using such substances.

I use almost no chemical substances. I don't take medicines, and I make a conscious effort to use only what comes from nature.

Darius Wright, Maple Shade, N.J.