DRUGS: HIS FRIENDS THOUGHT THAT IF HER COULD SEE HIMSELF WHILE ON HEROIN HE
WOULD QUIT.

Union City,N.J.-Luis Torres' friends figured they could get him off heroin
if he could only see himself on drugs, so they videotaped him as he was
coming down from a high.

For six or seven minutes, they recorded him as he went through
body-wracking seizures and struggled to breathe.

But Torres never got to see the tape. He died a few hours later, apparently
of an overdose.

"The whole point was to show him how stupid he looked," his friend Michael
Shipman, 34, said Wednesday. "I didn't think anything was going to happen."

Police seized the tape to investigate whether Shipman and the undetermined
number of other friends who were there should face charges for not getting
medical help him and didn't realize he was dying.

The tape was made at Shipman's apartment Jan. 6. Torres, 32, a carpet
installer from Union City, had arrived at the apartment early that morning
with a drug buddy after snorting some heroin. He was already high when he
got there.

Shipman, who had known Torres for about six months after Torres starting
coming regularly to the bar where Shipman worked, said he was always trying
to get Torres to kick his habit.

When the taping started, Shipman said, he asked the man Torres was with if
the breathing difficulty and seizures were anything to be concerned about.

"I don't do drugs, and I don't have any experience with it," Shipman said.
"This guy said he'll be all right. Like an (expletive), I believed him."

Shipman said he went to bed after checking that Torres was still breathing,
and woke up about 2:30 p.m. His roommate came home, and around 3:30 p.m.
asked, "Does he always sleep with his mouth and eyes open?"

Shipman said he called 911 and tried to give Torres mouth-to-mouth
resuscitation, but it was too late. Torres was taken to the hospital, where
he was pronounced dead.

"If it wasn't for the drugs, the kid was perfect," a teary-eyed Shipman said.

He added: "You don't know how much it hurts to lose one of your best friends."