THE LIFE AND DEATH OF BEN: HOW OUR DRUG LAWS FAILED HIM

Ben our son died on 6 October 1998, three months after his 21st
birthday. He had been addicted to heroin for nearly two years.

We were an ordinary middle-class family. Photo albums full of
Christenings, birthday parties; kindergarten; nativity plays;
Christmas Days; family picnics; beach holidays; school photos;
confirmations. We nearly always had dinner at the table together,
invited conversation on any topic, encouraged an active attitude of
tolerance and understanding of people outside our comfort zone. We
were totally committed to our marriage and our children.

It did not prevent us from slipping into a nightmare
existence.

After finishing his VCE at a private school, Ben went to college,
where he met a girl who was an addict. He thought he could help her -
he couldn't. Instead of helping her up, he fell down with her. This
was Ben - a champion of the underdog who lacked the strength to carry
out his good intentions. Sensitive, kind and vulnerable - they often
are. Life's slings don't slide off these caring individuals, they
absorb angst like a sponge. As a mother, it broke my heart to see him
sink. Sometimes our fingertips would touch but then he would slide out
of grasp.

I already had an underlying concern about him, without knowing why,
from about the age of 15 on. The difficulty lay in distinguishing the
difference between normal adolescent behavior and something more.

I was putting away some clothes of his in a drawer - I know he
probably could have put his own away - and I saw a syringe. He was in
the end of Year 11.

I didn't want to accuse him, I didn't want to drive him out. All the
time I was conscious I didn't want him running away, I didn't want him
out on the street, because his best option was in the safety of our
environment.

So I bided my time. I decided I wanted him to get a thorough medical
check-up, which he did. He was referred to the Cabrini for tests. When
they rang, Ben went white. For the first time he opened up. He said:
``Mum I'm in deep shit. I've got hep C.'' I went across the road to
the chemist and got a brochure on hepatitis C and read it. Then I
said: ``Yes, I think we are.''

I didn't expose my anxiety for fear of placing pressure on a fragile
situation. But later I said to him openly: this is killing us all,
we're going down with you, I said take that as your responsibility:
the burden of people loving you. He said: I don't need this pressure.
You do a lot of dancing.

There were moments of black humor. One day we had just spent an hour
in a doctor's surgery discussing the benefit of naltrexone. I sat
quietly in a corner saying nothing while the doctor and Ben argued
back and forth finally Ben agreed to try it - we went out to the car,
got in and Ben threw the tablets and information sheet onto the back
seat and said: ``I'm not going to do that - it might be bad for my
health.'' Given that he had a chronic liver condition from hepatitis C
his health was already marginal - it was a chance to save his life. I
lay on the steering wheel and wept in desperation. The doctor happened
to come out the front door of the surgery to get something out of his
car on the opposite side of the road. He looked over at me as he
crossed and summed the situation up and we looked at each other in
despair.

I told friends and family he had hepatitis C. It was not a dirty
little secret and I thought somebody might know something that I
didn't, that they might be able to help. So from my point of view it
was helpful for me to help him. From his point of view, I suppose it
would be seen as betrayal. Hiding away was not going to help me, and I
thought in the long run may not help him. But I was right. People
would ring and say ``turn on the television'' or ``turn on the radio''.

The stress is, of course, huge and there are many leads to follow,
many options; good and bad. You are desperate but you have to use your
common sense. You end up with files inches thick. You learn such
things as heroin was once available over the counter for general
medicinal use as a cough suppressant and that it gives an intense
feeling of pleasure.

At times I was envious of the feeling it produced - I wanted to feel
that feeling as a release from the emotional pain and anxiety.

We had many heart-wrenching moments with Ben, too many to recount, but
all are indelibly etched in my mind. Anxiety is the worst emotion in
the world, I think. We were in a situation we had no control over - we
could only adjust our sails to the prevailing winds.

The one person who could do something about it seemed unable to. We
were stolen from, lied to, our health was in jeopardy from contracting
hepatitis C and our safety was in question from dealers who were maybe
owed money. The world we entered was alien territory. I felt we had
dropped down a big black hole and I couldn't find any ledges to land
on to stop free falling. It distressed our friends to see us in such
straits.

An eminent gut man, who saw Ben for his hepatitis C, seemed bemused
when I asked if he would be referring Ben to counselling. He asked
why. I felt that if an adolescent presented with a chronic liver
condition due to drug abuse there was an obvious problem. But then I
was only a mother and not a specialist.

The ones who were gold I found in the most unexpected places - people
who broke confidentiality and risked their jobs to help me.

One night I woke to hear my husband quietly sobbing on his side of the
bed. One day in the Botanical Gardens in a secluded area we sat and
held each other and wept tears of utter despair. We had run out of
options and no one could help us, we had tried everything. But, of
course, you don't give up. Ben said one night: ``Mum, let go''. I told
him giving up was not in a mother's job description.

In the end you realise that you didn't cause it, you can't control it
and you can't cure it. Only they can. In the end we realised we could
only help Ben by helping ourselves. We joined a small group of seven
people in an eight-week self-help course, headed by a senior lecturer,
Dr John Toumbourou, who works at the Centre for Adolescent Health at
Melbourne University.

It was incredibly helpful. It taught me that you can't change other
people's behavior, only your own. That may force a change in the other
person. It drove home the fact that we are all responsible for our own
behavior, thereby eliminating any feelings of guilt. It taught me that
assuming responsibility for someone else's behavior makes them feel
inadequate and hopeless.

I would like to put forward some ideas I have had for a while. I
believe that legalisation is the only way to go. We have to eliminate
the criminal element in heroin. Prohibit anything - alcohol, drugs,
guns - and you immediately drive it underground and encourage
organised crime. It's that simple.

The critics say that heroin will be provided to novices - not so. You
would have to have an existing dependency. You or I would not have
access to it. ``If heroin was safe, inexpensive and locally
manufactured through pharmacists to registered addicts then the harm
that is presently being done to both the addicts and to our economy
would be minimised,'' one observer said recently.

If Ben had had access to a medically supervised dose to suit his
detoxed clean system he might not be dead now. Street heroin is
unreliable in its strength and content.

Reducing the supply of heroin - through recent drug busts - merely increases
its price and does nothing to alter the demand for it. As Dr Andrew
Rothfield said recently in a letter to The Age: ``There is no evidence that
hepatitis C will be prevented by this interception. The incidence of hep C
may actually increase because addicts may be more likely to share their more
costly doses. The losers will be all Australians who have to bear the
increasing costs of crime associated with illicit drug useage as well as
substantial police effort.'' The winners are the crime syndicates who
receive a high return.

Given that any reclassification of heroin will take some time, more
time than some kids have, drug proofing them by building their
self-esteem through education at a very young age is the only other
option. I would also like to see more parenting courses and a tighter
school community with more drug education.

I agree with Mr Peter Duncan Campbell, who lost a daughter to drugs.
He said: ``The repeated attempt to give up take their toll and erode
their self-respect. They (users) are not weak. They are wounded and
disarmed from the outset. They are dependent on the most callous
criminals. The user is the only non-evil link in the supply chain.
There is only one war against drugs and that is the countless battles
fought by the users themselves.

On 5 October at 11.45am we were taken into intensive care at the Royal
Melbourne Hospital to see eight doctors and nurses work for almost 12
hours to stabilise Ben. All we wanted to do was hold him, but there
was so much equipment and so many people. He was treated with such
care and dignity and we received such kindness, compassion and
professionalism. I cannot praise the people who work in our public
health system enough.

Five friends from school came in; boys who had stayed close. I stood
aside as one by one they put their arms around him shed tears and
whispered their own special goodbye to him. I hope it meant they drove
more slowly, had one less drink or continued to be non-drug users;
that the pain of seeing their friend showed them the fragility of life.

Ben died at 5pm Tuesday 6 October 1998 surrounded by people who loved
him. I bathed him and we said goodbye. I remembered, for no particular
reason, the Father's Day card Ben chose for Ian the previous month. It
said: ``I was never an easy child - the great ones never are.''

When we arrived at the church for his service on the 9th, we could not
believe the huge number of people - nearly 500. We didn't know that
many people cared about us so deeply. It was the most tragic week of
our lives but the most privileged. We were on the receiving end of
humanity at its best. Good people who entered our lives gave us the
strength we needed to cope with our loss. Friends sent us this poem
with their condolence letter:

To mourn too long For those we love is self-indulgent But to honor
their memory With a promise To live a little better For having known
them Gives purpose to their life And some reason For their death

Our young are at war but it is not on foreign dirt; it is in our
streets and our homes. And we are paying a very high price. We are
losing the potentially productive middle section of our society.

I want to make a difference - I want the carnage to stop. I don't want
to go to another young person's funeral.