WHAT IS SO WRONG WITH THESE KIDS' LIVES?

The article about heroin in the suburbs left me with a heavy heart. It
seems that we have come full circle. We are reliving the 1970s all over
again. We as a society have collectively forgotten the devastation that
heroin usage leaves in its wake.

I can't believe how stupid these kids are. What is so wrong with their
lives that they must live life perpetually doped up? Is life that difficult?

At least the kids you interviewed are still alive. My uncle got caught up
in the first wave of heroin use in the '70s. He spent 20 years in jail, and
died of AIDS. He was barely 40 when he died.

That's the road these kids are on.

But I am puzzled. These kids are all lily white. It doesn't take a genius
to figure out that a white teenager on the West Side of Chicago is up to no
good. If I were a Chicago cop with a West Side beat, I'd be profiling these
kids like crazy. Yet it doesn't seem like the police focus on the users.
They focus on the dealers, even though it is the white suburban punks like
those in your story that fuel the drug trade. Why aren't they the focus of
law enforcement? Confiscate a dope-head's car, and the addiction is over.
It's a long walk from Schaumburg to Chicago.

Eric Krieg

Mount Prospect