NO GLAMOR IN DRUG LIFESTYLE

On the fifth day of our special report, "Decades of Addiction-Drugs in
North Central Mass," we decided to run two pictures of a heroin user.

The picture that ran on our front page, showed a man -- but not his face --
getting ready to inject himself with heroin.

The second picture, which ran on page A8, shows the man injecting himself
with heroin.

The pictures ran as part of the installment about a day in the life of the
people on all sides of the illegal drug trafficking and use battle in North
Central Mass.

In the case of Scott, a Leominster man who spoke to us about his drug
addiction on the condition we didn't reveal his name, we wanted to
illustrate the lifestyle that comes with using drugs, in this case, heroin.

We believe the story is a cautionary tale about the dangers of using
heroin, cocaine and other number of illegal drugs.

They are illegal for a reason.

They will kill you if you use them.

Scott, by his own admission, lives a very sad life.

He starts his day by shooting heroin and he ends his day by shooting
heroin, which is true unfortunately for a growing number of people in the
region.

If he needs to, he sells his construction tools to get money for heroin.

Many of his fellow heroin addicts break into homes and steal things, or rob
people to get the money they need.

We believe there's no way anyone could read Scott's story and look at the
pictures and come away with anything but a sense of what a desperate,
unhealthy and ultimately deadly habit he has chosen.

If you use heroin like Scott does, chances are you will end up dying from
it, probably badly.

We received a few complaints from readers after publishing the story,
saying it encouraged drug use or gave teenagers a road map to injecting heroin.

We couldn't disagree more.

And frankly, teenagers don't need us to tell them how to shoot heroin. A
quick trip on the Internet will get them much better information.

Our story does nothing but illustrate how destructive, deadly and
disgusting drugs are.

There's nothing glamorous about shooting heroin in the back of your van on
a hot summer day.

It's just pathetic.

And it will get you killed quicker than you can imagine.

We hope if there really are teenagers out there thinking about using
heroin, that they do read our story and look at the pictures.

We have enough faith in teenagers to know that they will realize shooting
heroin will only take them down a road to ruin.