HEROIN TOOK THEM TO HELL

And then it killed the young couple

PORTLAND,Ore. - As afternoon traffic rumbled by, a young couple in grunge
clothes and combat clothes 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 hour, the bodies dangled side by side 15 metres above the
Willamette River. Cars slowed. A crowd gathered. Workers in office buildings
rushed to windows. Amtrack passengers were warned to close their curtains as
the bodies hung at eye level.

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 have decided on an old-fashioned public hanging," Douglas wrote
in a journal found in a 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 on July 1 shocked Portland - 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 to them.

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

In a study released this month by the U.S. office of national drug control
policy, nearly 14 per cent of the men arrested in Portland and 27 per cent
of the women tested positive for heroin. 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 metroploitan area.

Douglas had once worked as a tatoo 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.

Those who knew Douglas said drugs were always a part of his life. When he
and McGowan began using heroin, they started pawning everything they owned
to feed their habit. They were eventually kicked out of the friend's
appartment where they had been staying and put out on the streets.

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 U.S. every day to pay for his fix and how he considered
other ways of ending his life, including shooting himself.

Some of Portland's street people said news of the double suicide spread
quickly. "It seemed like people should have taken it harder," said a slender
22-year-old addict named Margaret. "When you are a junkie, you're options
are limited. You just have to keep doing what you are doing." - AP

Checked-by: Melodi Cornett