We are not alone.
We spent much of last week detailing the personal struggles of several families in Delaware County who have first-hand knowledge of the heroin epidemic and the horrific toll it is taking.
But don't think for a moment that this is some that is only happening in Delaware County.
If you think that way, think again.
Then read this.
The Associated Press is reporting from Vermont about how bad the situation is up there. And it sounds eerily familiar, a big spike in painkiller and heroin abuse, accompanied by a wave of burglaries and armed robberies believed committed by people who need money to feed their heroin or pill habit.
It's gotten so bad in Vermont that the governor last week used almost his entire State of the State address the epidemic, referring to it as "a crisis bubbling just beneath the surface."
He also is doing something that we've seen here, calling on the Legislature to pass laws encouraging treatment.
Here in Delco, Lynne Massi, who lost her nephew to heroin abuse, is pushing a measure in the Pa. Legislature referred to as a Good Samaritan Bill. It would allow someone who is with a person who may be ODing to report it and get help without fear of being charged. She believes her nephew David would be alive today if the person he was with when he OD'd had been able to simply call for help without any fear of legal retribution.
It's an idea that is clearly needed here in Delco - and elsewhere as well.
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