SERIES SHOWS INPORTANCE OF COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT IN WAR ON HEROIN

I just finished reading the last story of the Requiem for Heroin's Victims
series. I am grateful to the families for finding the courage and strength
to tell their stories. My family also suffers from this evil known as
heroin. I hope the people who read these stories now understand these were
not bad people. These were people who made one bad choice, and
unfortunately with heroin one bad choice is all it takes.

Our local law enforcement agencies are doing what they can to battle this
problem. The problem lies with the laws for heroin possession. The
threshold for mandatory prison time currently is 15 grams, which amounts to
150 individuals tins. State Rep. Frank Mautino has been working hard for
quite some time to change that with House Bill 2582. This Bill would lower
the amount of heroin needed for prison time to make it easier to get these
dealers off our streets and the addict into treatment.

I urge the people of our community to get involved and help fight this
battle against illegal drugs. We need to see better drug abuse education,
more N.A. meetings, some sort of drug treatment facility with certified
drug counselors, and help for the families suffering too. Heroin is a
powerful and evil drug. It destroys not only the addicts life, but destroys
families as well. It's very easy to think this won't happen to your family,
but why take the chance of your child being tempted by it at all. We need
to fight not only to protect our communities, but to protect our childrens'
futures as well.

Michelle Carr

Cherry