HOW COCAINE KILLED INMATE

Inquest Into Death Urges Education Programs

Joseph Balog never knew that the cocaine he was snorting into his nose
was silently destroying his heart and secretly keeping him teetering
on the brink of death. A coroner's jury recommended yesterday that the
government create programs for kids in schools to teach them that the
drug can cause a user to suddenly drop dead with heart failure.

After a three-day inquest that explored the death of the 20-year-old
inmate of the Penetanguishene superjail, the jury found that Balog
died accidentally from cardiac arrest due to toxic levels of cocaine
in his system on Sept. 29, 2003.

Experts testified Balog's heart, liver and spleen were so swollen and
filled with scar tissue from constant cocaine abuse that he was soon
bound to die -- but that he was probably unaware of his dire condition.

"His cocaine abuse had so beat up his heart that his death was going
to happen no matter what," said counsel for the coroner, Crown
attorney David Russell, who traced Balog's last, tragic two days
before he collapsed in convulsions in his cell at the superjail.

In a tearful plea to the jury, Balog's mother asked it to recommend
programs to kids before it's too late.

"Tough love sometimes doesn't work," said Kinga Balog. "Education is
the key."

Earlier this week, the inquest heard of the mother's frantic attempts
to save her son from his addiction to cocaine and codeine-based
prescription drugs.

REFUSED DETOX

The day before he died, in one last desperate attempt at tough love,
she moved out of the house and told her son he could not move with her
unless he first signed himself into a detox centre.

As usual, she said, he refused. The next day, he was dead.

The jury recommended that government-funded awarness programs be
implemented in schools immediately.