HEROIN'S TOLL

The molecules rocket to the brain. Pain, worry, joy and love are washed
away by a chemical ecstasy; the falsehood excludes all else.

It seems as if life is good; then the feeling is gone, and the sickening
crash begins. With a few bucks and assent to the cycle of heroin addiction,
one is refixed, but not restored. And if he dies, says Dr. Frederick W.
Fochtman, Allegheny County's chief toxicologist, it is probably a pleasant
release by nodding off.

Heroin kills the addict because it permits none but consummate allegiance,
even as food, family, hygiene, shelter and work become, at best,
peripheral. The person disintegrates or gets help. As the disintegration
progresses, getting help becomes more problematic.

Trib reporter Carl Prine and photogropher Keith Hodan found that the term
"old junkie" is an oxymoron.

But if we legalized heroin, would not the bloody turf wars renewed on
Pittsburgh's streets and the dangers intrinsic to the addict's life disappear?

What is not asked, of course, is how many more then might travel a road to
perdition owing to the drug and not its legal status.

"By the time law enforcement becomes involved, it's too late. We will never
stamp out drugs. ..." Pittsburgh police Chief Robert McNeilly Jr. says.

The chief is sworn to uphold the law, but he also is strongly inclined
toward a much greater emphasis on education and rehabilitation. "We need to
give these people back their lives, their souls."

Yet, are their lives and souls ours to give? Bad choices may be irrevocable.

Having a cultural backdrop that condemns heroin through education,
counseling for those at risk, community action, moral suasion and law
enforcement is better than doctoring egg shells after the fall.