DOUBLE SUICIDE EMPHASIZES ADDICTS' PLIGHT

PORTLAND, Ore -- As afternoon traffic rumbled by, a young couple in
grunge-style clothing 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 hour, the bodies dangled side by side 50 feet above the
Willamette River.

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 fiance, Mora
McGowan, were heroin addicts whose habit had left them broke, tormented and
hopeless.

"I think I've decided on an old-fashioned 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 into the realization that
many of the young people who live on the streets are addicts with 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 HelpLine. "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."

Heroin 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, 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 became engaged and moved in together a year and a half ago, and had
been responsible about paying their rent until last August.

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
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 building. "I thought it
was just a prank, until police came."

Every weekday morning, on the scrubby fringe of Portland's downtown, where
black tar heroin sells for $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.

Checked-by: "Rolf Ernst"