Per year. Heroin and opiate abuse is not a criminal justice issue alone. This nation must recognize this addiction as the overwhelming powerful chemical dependence condition it is. Concurrently too it is often a Mental Health and mental medical crisis as well. They tell us the annual financial costs for our society now is over 33 billion a year and thats based on 1996 figures. But the gravest cost is in lives lost and grief felt by those loved ones whom the overdose victims leave behind. I think of the family of my own district staffer, teresa, who lost her beloved cousin, angel kid, this past july, to heroin. Angel grew up in a working class family, got married young, had two children, went to work in food service and one night on her way home was in a terrible car accident and was given opioid Pain Medicine to mr. Herrera with her discomfort. As she regained strength, she found it difficult to live with chronic pain and turned to other Prescription Medication and eventually to illega