There's a great debate on heroin addiction v alcohol addiction over at Taking Liberties.
I do know a bit about both as one of my friends is a heroin addict and another is a clinical alcoholic. Both depend on the their drug of choice physically. Both are violently ill when they stop.
The alcoholic beats herself up constantly because of her addiction. The help she gets from NHS funded services makes her feel worse about herself. She can and often does, on her own volition, go on the waggon and I've known her stay clean for months. Life circumstances and sheer bloody poverty tend to drag her back to her addiction because straight life achieves nothing. Drunken life numbs the pain.
My heroin addicted friend is the subject of the newspaper articles featured here that I wrote back in 2002. I knew him before he was an addict. Before smack came to my city. Rumour has it an ex-police officer set up the networks here. Certainly a former PC was jailed about five years ago for being a "big fish" dealer.
Like a lot of other people at the time my friend had no idea what he was messing with when he started taking heroin. He only found out when he didn't want to take it any more.
I've always lived, until recently, on council estates. Many of friends fell victim to hard drugs. Many did and still do use "softer" drugs with no desire to "move up". I think I'm lucky because I got a life. I've always believed that there but for the grace of God ...
One of our old crowd, and an ex-girlfriend of my other half - a beautiful young woman - died of an overdose in her late 30s. Another friend thought he was using speed. It's what he asked for. When he stopped buying it and got physically ill, his dealer told him it was because he was now addicted to heroin. My mate's girlfriend punched the dealer in the face. The dealer needed to sell it because he owed his dealer one step up.
I've rubbed my friend's name out of the features because in truth I don't know where he is now. He could have got free of his addiction and be living the life he wanted. The last I heard he got sent to prison about three years ago.
My alcoholic friend took five years of very heavy drinking to become physically addicted to alcohol. My heroin addicted friend took just a few hits before the smack took a grip. I know which in reality - not theory - is worse.
The other piece below is about the parents of drug addicts, an article about St Gillian of Merron, former MP and health minister, and the role she played in response to the parents' desperate cry for help.
Shame on her for wasting so many billions on anti-smoker money when that funding and effort could have saved real lives and made a real difference.
* Duh - obviously any figures and info in these newspaper features is out of date. The articles go back to May 2002.