HEROIN TRAGEDY

Arguments about what drug is the most dangerous tend to be circular and
pointless.

There are those who will say that cocaine, or crack cocaine, is more
dangerous than heroin. In the 1960s, people claimed that LSD was merely
"mind-expanding" with tragic results. The debate over the dangers posed by
marijuana go around and around.

But few would argue that no matter what the pecking order is, heroin ranks
high on every list.

Last week, the Bermuda Sun reported that local drugs counsellors had seen
something like 130 people approach them for help getting off heroin, a
remarkably high number - about one in every 450 people - for a small
community like Bermuda.

And it stands to reason that if those are the people seeking help, there
must be at least that number, and probably many more, who see no reason to
get help.

It is also likely that many of those people will be quite young, because
almost all of Bermuda's heroin addicts died in the late 1980s and early
1990s as a result of contracting AIDS through intravenous drug use.

That dark cloud had one silver lining: It put people locally off heroin for
a few years.

Inevitably, though it came back, with news reports beginning in the
mid-1990s that heroin use was on the rise again, although it was not being
taken via needles but by inhalation.

That's no reason to be happy. Heroin taken in any form is highly addictive
and ultimately fatal and it is deeply worrying that its use is increasing.

But it is even worse that some dealers are now alleged to be cutting heroin
with other substances, such as rat poison, to make a substance that it is
immediately fatal and may have contributed to the deaths of two people this
week alone.

This is behaviour that is beyond criminal; it is diabolical and whoever is
doing it should be brought to justice immediately.

For heroin users, though, this should be a warning - as if any is needed -
to get help and get off all drugs. The human cost is simply too high for
the community to tolerate this any longer.