OFFICIALS DRAG THEIR FEET IN FIGHT AGAINST HEROIN ADDICTION

I would like to thank Emily Sweeney for her insightful article on the
rise of heroin deaths and use south of Boston ("Heroin deaths on the
rise," Globe South, Jan. 14). I am, however, disheartened that this
epidemic continues to escalate, unabated, almost a year after Ms.
Sweeney wrote her article on heroin use in the area, highlighting an
information forum at the Unity Church in North Easton.

Our public officials and elected representatives continue to drag
their feet on increased funding for, and accessibility to, aggressive
rehabilitation and educational programs. Their inaction abandons
families to be destroyed by the gut-wrenching fear and life-changing
grief they suffer, struggling to save their children, then losing
them to overdose. My own family is such a family. This is beyond
indifference and inhuman.

Something must be done now. We cannot wait another 11 months for our
medical and social service groups to act and our politicians to
confront this epidemic. The first step is to ensure that when
families, as a last desperate act, use Section 35 to commit their
children to state facilities for 30 days, that their children be
mandated to stay the full 30 days, and not one minute less. If
politicians on Beacon Hill were to support such a mandate, it would
give addicts a glimmer of hope to conquer this drug. Now, the state
is releasing such users as early as two weeks after commitment. This
is especially true in the new women's facility in New Bedford, where
women have been released after two weeks and declared "ready" to
start a new life.

Everyone who has dealt with heroin addiction knows that no one has a
chance of recovery with only two weeks off the streets. The user not
only returns to a hopeless life of addiction and probable death, but
public safety remains compromised as the addict finds money in
whatever way he or she can. The two-week approach to recovery is
laughable, if it were not so tragic. Governor Deval Patrick offered
us a glimmer of hope when he cited heroin use as one of the serious
ills he sees impeding the progress of our state.

Attention, education, money, and action must come now, in the names
of all our children we have already lost, and the many who are
standing on the edge of the abyss.

Jody Price

Brockton