Shoot Up...But Don't Die on Our Watch

In our all great NBC nightly news today I had the great fortune of catching a story on the increasing prevalence of a *lethal* form of heroine...as if regular heroine is somehow *good* for you. Apparently this new batch is so awful it's been known to frequently...cause damn-near-instant fatal heart attacks, with hundreds more being rushed to hospitals for emergency "antidotes." Then they put some high-ranking cop on the News who says something to the effect of, "If there was ever a reason to kick a heroine addiction, it's here and now...it's our job to help get these people into rehab." Hold up! It's your freakin' fault you started on your heroine addiction in the first place. Like seatbelt safety and smoking, why do we need to increase the duties of our already overtaxed law enforcement officials, especially in the big cities, to keep people from killing themselves? I suppose because, with all these issues, it's either spend the money on the cops to enforce the rules, or pay out of taxpayer pocket anyway when these people wind up in the ER's and/or free clinics and either don't have health insurance or the insurance doesn't over all of the expenses.
Nevertheless, I found the cop's statement troubling. It inherently implies that police forces know--which they do--who are using the narcotics and are more concerned with cleaning up the dead bodies from these rather potent forms of heroine and other drugs on the street than actually hitting the sources--the drug dealers themselves. Many kudos to the joint Boston Police and State Police efforts for the big bust in Savin Hill a few weeks ago (meth lab). Unfortunately this was quickly lost in a sea of violent crimes, especially in nearby Dorchester neighborhoods, too many to count, over the past weeks. That's life.