oh DT I am so very sad to hear this! My thoughts are with you and your family.

xo

I am so sorry DT. When will this madness of addiction stop?!

There really is no words to express loses like these except to say my heart felt condolences goes out to you.

Thoughts and prayers to you and your family. Sorry for your loss.... it hits hard.

very sorry to hear of your familys sad loss DT This life can be so cruel Thoughts and respect to you and your family

So to hear that. Prayers coming your way

Thank you all, your words do matter, they help.
I'm struggling with a question that a recovering person might not usually struggle with:
Was it heroin that forced Christina to live her life in a shadow world, contract Hep C and not have stability in her life and then took that life? Or was it the PROHIBITION against heroin that did all those things. I've been doing some research and the results are a little shocking. Priced reasonably and available in known purity the drug may be less dangerous than it is now not more.
Thoughts?

BTW, I'm not condoning heroin use I'm just saying the reason needle addicts die younger than alcoholics may have more to do with the illegal shadow world and the guessing at purity than it does with the drug itself

Heroin is an extremely dangerous drug. Highly addictive and totally alters thought patterns. My brother who works in the court system told me it has become a huge problem in high schools. IMO we need to crack down on the dealers and increase education of such a dangerous substance.

That's just my opinion DT

Part of the problem with heroin prohibition is that it's completely ineffective . Its still widely available but the price and illegality drives people in the shadows and the unknown purity kills them.

Street drugs are bad but in my opinion the war on drugs has made them even worse. I don't know what the solution is and there may not be one but if the U.S. followed the lead of Dutch laws concerning drug use and spent the money we use fighting a losing battle against soft drugs on education and rehab that might be a start.

I can see were your coming from dt when I realised I was hooked on alcohol I did rationalize rightly or wrongly That it was better being hooked on something that has quality control and allthough yeh technically poison not subject to the vagaries on street crime etc
I have also read studies on a time back in the fifties sixties when the only people in the UK Who used heroin as a so called recreational drug were Doctors and nurses Of course they got uncontaminated supply resulting in very few fatalitis This of course changed when hallucinogenic s like LSD Became dificult to get so heroin became a street drug and of course cut with all sorts of additives

Don, I know a bit the way you think and ya might ask yourself is it really worth the trouble going dsown the prohibition road? Can't go back and change a damn thing. I belong to a group in my area that brings awareness to addiction issues and have teamed up with a friend that lost his daughter 2-14-11 to the drug and 2 days later her best friend. We loss at least 2 teens a month with no end in sight. The key to this group they have stayed keep there group going, going to schools 25 to date with there message about addiction and produced a dvd thats selling well around the country for education purposes.

http://www.communityparent.org/

There are no easy answers I know in Portugal they have not arrested anyone in 10 yrs on drugs but have a superior drug rehabilitation program that's 2nd to none. I do know the "war on drugs" is a failure but it seems no one that has the power to change things will do nothing about it.

Whats the answer? Personally I don't have a clue except bring the problem to the fore front and keep pushing forward.

Sorry for the ramble but this is close to my heart and personal.

Yes Rivalino that's exactly what I'm talking about be it morphine or heroin those docs kept their jobs there standing in the community and not only their lives but for the most part their health ( relatively little organ damage) Don't misunderstand legal or not that crap is way too addictive for me to condone. But not condoing what your family does is a little different than seeing them destroyed and killed. I've long been for MJ legalization but now maybe all drugs. If prohibition worked it might be different but it does not work. I'm not even certain its meant to

Thanks Gim, very insightful.