Drugs are a fatal attraction.

They’re an addiction, too. There’s no question about it.But they begin as a fatal attraction, maybe due to peer pressure, or poor decision making, or naiveté. Whatever the reason, they’re bad news.As we’re seeing quite often, overdose victims can be saved by police or ambulance personnel equipped with naloxone, a narcotic antidote. It’s not unusual for a chronic user to be saved repeatedly.But now, one Pennsylvania ambulance service will start asking drug overdose victims a shocking question: Would you please indicate your preferred funeral home, just in case we don’t make it here in time to save you from your next overdose?Johnstown’s West End Ambulance Services, a privately funded, nonprofit emergency unit, says they’re just trying to do their part to educate the public about the issue, and we suppose, to wake some folks up.Heroin is a bad problem in that area, same as here.Ambulance personnel are in a unique position as they’re the first responders at a time of overdose.Often, they’ll put a tube down the victim’s throat to assist in breathing. Then they’ll place an intravenous line to inject the patient with a large dose of naloxone.If the life is saved, medical personnel in Johnstown will now hand the patient a card that informs the person just how close they came to dying.It’s serious business, and so is the overdose problem.In Lycoming County, a coroner is handling the crisis a different way.Charles E. Kiessling says it’s time to “call it what it is.”Any death due to heroin in his county will be listed as a homicide on the death certificate.The other available options are natural, accidental, suicide or undetermined.But Kiessling says the answer is easy.“If you are selling heroin to someone and they die, isn’t that homicide?”Before this, Kiessling listed overdose deaths as accidental. But that category is more suited for those who fall off a roof or die in a crash.“If you are dealing drugs, you are a murderer,” he says, even if “you may not know who you are killing. We should call drug dealers what they are — dealing death,” says Kiessling, a registered nurse.Incidentally, cases where prescription drugs also were a factor are an exception to the rule.There’s one point over which just about everybody agrees — the drug problem has reached epidemic proportions in Pennsylvania.Deaths are commonplace. Some say we’re losing our younger generation.Local residents are aware of the problem. Many have taken part in initiatives to generate prevention and awareness.Hopefully, the message will get to those who need it most and we’ll see a reversal to the trend.In the meantime, having local paramedics adopt a “pick your funeral home” policy sounds like good idea, especially if it saves just one life.We’ve already lost far too many.By Donald R. Serfass |

dserfass@tnonline.com