THE SAVAGE ILLOGIC OF HEROIN ADDICTION

Heroin addicts are dying for a fix, but that hasn't translated into
new business for Oscar Hernandez.

Dead junkies don't make other junkies toss their needles and rush
into rehab. Dead junkies make other junkies crave a piece of the action.

This, Hernandez knows all too well.

An addict-turned-treatment-center-administrator at My Brothers Keeper
in North Camden, Hernandez can practically predict these lethal cycles.

Every couple of years, some greedy dealer starts tinkering in the
kitchen, concocting a new recipe to deliver a maximum high with
minimum supply - and to pocket premium profits.

"It is a business," he says with a sigh.

In Puerto Rico, Hernandez tells me, users who injected heroin mixed
with horse tranquilizer have lost limbs and suffered severe burns.

In Camden, this time around, the magic ingredient seems to be
fentanyl. Normally it's a powerful painkiller. Mixed with heroin and
injected, it just kills.

From an addict's twisted perspective, the news about the bad batch
is all good and well worth the risk.

"They think it's pure because somebody died," longtime user Jason
Ortiz told my colleague Dwight Ott.

The death toll stands at nine in Philadelphia, Camden and the South
Jersey suburbs.

Ten if you consider the guy who died in Harrisburg last week. Twelve
if you include the two who overdosed on some funky junk in Wilmington.

And then there are the survivors - 70 and counting, according to Bill
Shralow of the Camden County Prosecutor's Office.

They include a couple who shot up in a Porta-Potty in Wiggins Park
and a guy who was revived in the bathroom of a Delaware McDonald's.
And 47 users treated at Camden's Cooper University Hospital in just
the last week.

"Our primary goal is to stop people from dying," Shralow insists, "to
find the dealers and get the bad stuff off the street."

So the addicts can feel safe talking, knowing they won't be arrested
for a habit that's both lethal and illegal? Somehow, I'm not sure
they'll buy it.

At the risk of sounding obvious: Is it a sign that we're misfiring in
the war on drugs when a deadly batch of heroin creates a shopping
spree on the streets?

Bill Piper thinks so. But he should, working for the Drug Policy
Alliance, a leading drug-policy reform organization.

Surely, chest-thumping, image-conscious America must be steamed that
Europe, of all places, is finding ways to keep drug addicts from
killing themselves and committing crimes.

Spain, Germany and Canada are experimenting with "safe injection
rooms," where users get medical care and, perhaps, inspiration to quit.

Sounds a little hokey to me, but Piper swears studies show they work.

Switzerland has gone a step further, giving hard-core users
pharmaceutical-grade heroin.

"Once they don't have to worry about where they're getting their next
fix and how they're going to pay for it, their whole life changes,"
Piper tells me. "They start taking baby steps to get their lives back
together, get jobs."

And maybe even get clean.

He admits it's a lot for law-and-order-oriented Americans to digest.

"Europeans' drug policies are much more pragmatic," Piper says. "They
say: 'We know there are harms related to drug use and drug trade, but
there are also harms related to drug prohibition. How do we reduce
all of them?' "

Unlike American users, American leaders tend to be risk-averse.

San Francisco launched a 911 amnesty program so drug users can get
help without fear of arrest, but that's San Francisco. We expect as much.

New Mexico politicians rewrote liability laws to give public-health
and law enforcement officials the power to administer a treatment
that can revive overdose victims quickly.

But closer to home, Gov. Corzine was outraged to discover that even
fellow Democrats are unwilling to pass needle-exchange legislation
that supporters say would save lives.

You use, you lose. For now, that's the American way.