DRUGS:A VERY PUBLIC DOUBLE HANGING SHINES A HARSH LIGHT-BRIEFLY-ON THE
CITY'S HEROIN PROBLEM.

Portland, Ore.-As afternoon traffic rumbled by, a young couple in grunge
clothes and combat boots climbed over the rail of the downtown Steel Bridge,
slipped twin nooses from a single rope around their necks and jumped to
their deaths.

For nearly an hours, the bodies dangled side by side about 50 feet above the
Willamette Rive. Cars slowed. A crowd gathered on the banks. Workers in
office buildings rushed toward the windows. Amtrak passengers were warned to
close their curtains as their train drew near the lower level of the bridge,
where the bodies hung at eye level until police could remove them.

The couple, 29-year-old Michael Douglas and his 25-year-old fiancee, Mora
McGowan, were heroin addicts whose habit left them broke, tormented and
hopeless.

"I think I've decided on an oldfashoined public hanging," Douglas wrote in a
13-page journal found in the book bag slung over his shoulder. "The Steel
Bridge shall be my gallows. ... Mora and I go together on the Steel Bridge."

The very public suicide July 1 shocked this city, at least for a moment,
into the realization that many of the young people who live on the streets
here are addicts and there is little help available for them.

"A lot of us really took this to heart," said Donna Mulcare, a volunteer at
the Oregon Partnership's drug and alcohol Help-Line. "This issue hits many
more people than you realize - chances are you know somebody or work with
somebody or passed someone on the street who is addicted."

Herion is responsible for more deaths in Oregon than any other drug,
according to Dr. Larry Lewman, state medical examiner. In 1997, there were
221 drug-related deaths in Oregon; of those, 161 involved heroin.

In a study released this month by the Office of National Drug Control
Policy, nearly 14 percent of the men arrested in Portland and 27 percent of
the women tested positive for heroin or related opiates. The rate among the
Portland women was the highest of all 23 major U.S. cities studied. Just
over 1 million people live in the Portland metropolitan area.

Oregon has the nation's 10th-highest suicide rate, at 17 suicides per
100,000 population.

Douglas had once worked as a tattoo artist and landscaper, McGowan as an
assistant manager for a downtown beauty salon. They got engaged and moved in
together a year and a half ago, and had been responsible about paying their
rent until last August.

At least once, McGowan tried treatment but failed. In despair, she tried
suicide by cutting her wrists, but her mother rushed her to a hospital.
Douglas tried to come up with the money to buy enough heroin for an
overdose, but he couldn't.

Police Sgt. Kent Perry said Douglas wrote in his journal about the grind of
having to raise $200 every day to pay for his fix and how he considered
other ways of ending his life, including shooting himself or lying down on
the train tracks.

"It was a waste of life," said Isaac Frankel, an analyst at Northwest
Natural Gas who saw the twin suicide from his office.

Every weekday morning, on the scrubby fringe of Portland's downtown, where
black tar heroin sells for about $50 per quarter gram, at least 20 people
line up for a chance at the few daily slots in the Hooper Center for Alcohol
and Drug Intervention, the city's biggest detoxification clinic.

"There are far fewer treatment resources than are needed - probably for
every 10 addicts that have wanted treatment, only one is admitted," said
Richard Harris, executive director of Central City Concern, which oversees
the clinic.

Some of those who waited in line said news of the double suicide spread
quickly on the streets, but any effect it might have had was overshadowed by
their own daily struggles with heroin.

"It seemed like people should have taken it harder," said a slender
22-year-old heroin addict who asked to be identified only as Margaret.

For three years now, Margaret has been scrounging for the $50 a day she
needs to stay high, selling everything she owns, even her body. She and more
than 10 others were turned away at the treatment center.

"Once you start, it's one of the hardest things to get off of," she said.

Checked-by: "Rolf Ernst"