Heroine is becoming an epidemic in our nation. In our local area, the increase in heroine related deaths has risen to levels I would have never guessed would be possible. The drug Naloxone has reverse the effect of heroine if administered in a timely manner. Police and emergency personnel have been trained on the use of this drug for a long while. Now classes have been offered to train non-law enforcement and non-emergency personnel to administer the drug. The goal of course is to save lives be eliminating fatal overdoses of heroine.

While I applaud all the efforts being made to address the heroine epidemic it frustrates me that we even must fight this battle. Since I was high school age I have known heroine is something you avoid. It is harmful to your body in many ways. It creates a dependency that drives many users to crime to support their habit. It destroys trust in families and other relationships. Once trust is destroyed it is difficult to re-build and in some cases impossible to re-build. I long for the day when heroine is not in the news because people have simply stopped using it!