Heroin is evil, no way around it. It feeds on the weaknesses of those who face depression in their daily lives, and really does suck their souls and turn them into something inhuman. My sister got addicted to heroin at the age of 14. My family is loving and stable. There was nothing in her past that drove her away from us. At least not in her external environment. But depression is a powerful thing and makes it easy to fall prey to substance abuse. It was precisely because we love her that it was difficult to know her during that time. She had run away from home, and we were constantly worried if we would ever see her again, if she was hurt, if she was still alive. When she would appear at home, she was not the person we knew and loved. It was like that person had been buried underneath and if only we could shower her with more love, maybe one day she'd know it and come out again. But usually the love we gave her was "wasted", and she would leave us again for the streets/hospital/streets. Speaking as a relative of an addict, and this will probably shock some of you, there were times that I wished she would just die and get it over with. Not because I hated her (although sometimes it felt like it), but because I loved her and missed her and wanted the suffering of my family and my sister to end. But thank God she didn't. She was wasting her life, but eventually, she came back to us. It was a bumpy road with lots of false starts, but she has been clean now for 6 years. She is in university and publishing her writing and has become a loving wonderful young woman. I still have anger at what happened to her and to our family. Alot of it rests with heroin. And for those of you that are shocked by Tom's comments, I have to say that I find them natural and familiar. These people are wasting their lives. But the important thing is that he takes care of them anyway. He treats them politely and tries his best. And the frustration with the waste wouldn't exist if there wasn't a love for humanity in the first place. I do believe that if we'd given up on my sister, she would have had no reason not to give up on herself. And I know that this doesn't work for everybody, but the chance is worth the effort.