NAMES CAN HELP END DRUG PLAGUE

Wayne County has a plague on its hands, but county officials are
inexplicably refusing to identify its victims.

About 60 people have succumbed since mid-May to a deadly cocktail of
heroin and fentanyl, a pain-killing drug developed for cancer
patients. The Detroit area has by far the most deaths from this mix
of any place in the country. Federal, state and local medical and law
enforcement officials have been assembled in Detroit for weeks trying
to find the source of the drugs. Public warnings have been issued,
but the deaths continue. Yet authorities have not responded to a Free
Press request for the names of the victims, other than to ask for more time.

If there is not a master list of the victims, the sleuths charged
with tracing the drugs are not doing a very good job, since the list
would be the basis for finding commonalities that might lead
someplace. If there is a list, keeping it secret serves no useful
purpose. Someone might know something about one or more of the
victims -- relatives, suspicious acquaintances, usual hangouts --
that could be a lead for investigators.

Beyond that, keeping the victims anonymous serves only to minimize
the impact of this epidemic. It makes people care less when they know
only that drug users are dying -- nameless, faceless people who made
bad choices and were probably a burden. The truth is, each of these
victims was someone's son or daughter and very likely had friends and
family who tried at some point to stop their slide into the hell of
addiction. Some kin may not even know of a death; others may have
some useful information for police.

The county has no legal basis for withholding the names. It is
well-settled law in Michigan that autopsy results are public
information. It is well-established investigative procedure that an
informed public can be an important source of information. Wayne
County is doing a disservice to the public and to the victims of this
scourge by failing to release fundamental information about a mounting crisis.