Mother of deadly heroin overdose victims says system failure is killing kids

[Z]

DUBUQUE, Iowa (KCRG TV9) --
The mother of two brothers, who died last weekend of an apparent heroin overdose, says her sons were not bad kids trying to be good, they were sick kids trying to be well.

Vicki Allendorf says her two sons, Zachary and Terry McPoland died within hours of each other on Saturday night. Police are not saying if a stronger version of heroin in the city was a factor in the McPoland brother's death.Allendorf is the executive Director of the National Nonprofit I Hate Heroin. That organization's Facebook page has almost 160,000 followers from all over the world. For years, Allendorf has been advocating for better treatment for heroin addicts.Last Wednesday she talked with TV9 about her excitement that the Narcan bill passed in Iowa, giving caretakers access to the drug that blocks the effects of a heroin overdoses.On Tuesday, Allendorf said in a statement to TV9, "Our system is amazingly broken and my son's slipped through the cracks on many, many, many occasions. Our system failure is killing kids. We have no standard of care for addiction treatment like other chronic progressive and fatal diseases. This must change or we're going to continue to lose our loved ones."Police say in the meantime, everyone should be on alert for any kind of illegal drug use."There is simply a heroin problem in Dubuque. And it's possible that it's stronger than others. Depending on where it originated, where they manufactured it, what they did to it after they obtained it, before they sold it," Dubuque Police Lt. Scott Baxter said.Police say they are also investigating the death of David Lepsch, 28. He died in Dubuque on Monday. Investigators say they are looking into the possibility that his death may also be heroin-related

.http://www.kcrg.com/content/news/--Dubuque-Mother-of-two-brothers-who-died-from-Heroin-Overdose-says-system-failure-is-killing-kids-375475771.htmlThere's a video on the article if anyone is interested.  I can't get it to embed here.

[gnossos]

"...says her sons were not bad kids trying to be good, they were sick kids trying to be well..."

If only EVERYONE could come to the same, honestly pretty fucking OBVIOUS conclusion. It seems to be almost impossible for those who haven't experienced addiction themselves first-hand to find compassion and sympathy for the addicted instead of the usual derogatory judgements and holier-than-thou mentality.