THE UNRELENTING POWER OF HEROIN

Here's how powerful heroin is.

In September 2007, 18-year-old Nick Beinlich overdosed on it in the
Buffalo Grove home of his Stevenson High School classmate Matt
McGovern and never regained consciousness, dying five days later.

Four months later, River Forest police found McGovern in a shopping
center parking lot, slumped over the steering wheel of his car with a
needle dangling from his arm.

Just think about that. A friend essentially died in his house, and
that didn't stop McGovern from using. It wasn't enough to scare him
straight, wasn't enough to shame him straight, wasn't enough to force
him to face his addiction.

A friend essentially died in his house, and yet, McGovern went back
to heroin. Just think about that.

But the power of heroin didn't stop there.

In September 2008, another Stevenson friend of McGovern's,
18-year-old Phil Capone of Vernon Hills almost died of an overdose,
saved only because his mother found him unconscious in time to summon
medical help.

Then in April this year, another Stevenson friend, 19-year-old Eddie
Sivkov of Buffalo Grove, died on the floor of his bathroom a few
months after completing a two-week rehab program.

And two months after that, Lincolnshire police arrested McGovern and
charged him with possession of heroin after an auto accident. The
20-year-old driver of the car in which McGovern was riding also was
allegedly high on heroin.

Two months after a second friend had died. Less than a year after a
third friend almost died. And if the police account is correct,
McGovern was still on heroin.

If you're clean, you ask yourself, how could that be? Two high school
friends die. Another almost dies. You're arrested once. With all of
that happening, who in his right mind would still be using? How could that be?

The answer, unfortunately, is simple. Someone with a heroin addiction
isn't in his right mind.

This is how powerful heroin is.

As Jamie Sotonoff's reports sharply described last week, we're facing
an epidemic of heroin abuse in the suburbs and in our schools. And
it's leaving death and shattered lives in its wake.

Much more needs to be done to combat it. More attention and more
funding is needed to try to get addicts off it.

But as McGovern's story clearly illustrates, the most effective way
to get off heroin is to never get on it in the first place.

That's a message our community and our schools and parents need to underscore.