HEROIN ADDICT GIVEN A SECOND CHANCE

Each morning, Primbee man Geoffrey Maher rises at five and searches the
streets for his two oldest children just to make sure that drugs have not
claimed their lives overnight.

And before he goes to bed at the end of the day he does it all over again.

That is the heartache and misery of a parent who refuses to give up on his
two heroin-addicted children.

"It's sheer hell," Mr Maher said. "I've had a lot of people tell me to cut
them loose, but if I do that I might as well just look forward to the day I
bury them."

Mr Maher spent $7000 for his son Geoffrey to join a naltrexone program,
only to see him back on "the gear" three weeks later.

And on five occasions he has kept a 24-hour watch over his daughter,
Leanne, while she detoxed from drugs.

The two, who are now in their early 20s, turned to heroin a week after
their eldest sister Sandy died in 1997 from a "hot shot" of heroin.

"Each time Leanne detoxes and the heroin haze lifts, she begins to feel the
pain of Sandy's death. It's not long after that she gets back on the
stuff," her stepmother, Maria Maher, said yesterday outside Wollongong
District Court.

Leanne, from Werrang Rd, Primbee, is facing a term of imprisonment after
pleading guilty to stealing a car and break, enter and steal charges.

But Judge Joe Phelan suspended the sentence, giving the 21-year-old a
second chance in a long-term drug rehabilitation program in Canberra.

Judge Phelan accepted that the former dental assistant had been
self-medicating her grief and was suffering a major depression when she
committed the crimes.

But it was now up to Leanne to turn her life around.

"This is an opportunity to try to reverse the tragedy of the past few
years," Judge Phelan said to her as she was released from custody.

A relieved Mr Maher said it was the first time authorities had extended a
helping hand to his daughter.

"Each time Leanne has decided to go into rehab, it has taken three weeks
for a bed to become available and by then her desire to get clean is gone,"
he said. "Three weeks can be a lifetime to a heroin addict."

Mr Maher believes drugs are one of the biggest problems facing society and
he can't understand why the government does not spend more money
rehabilitating users.

"It costs so much money to keep addicts in jail and when they're released
they just re-offend," he said. "Surely it's cheaper to get them off the
drugs by providing more rehab beds and cheaper naltrexone programs."

Leanne has until August to prove to the court that she can remain off drugs
and stay in the rehabilitation program.