My neighbour Doug died this week of a heroin overdose.  This is the fourth neighbour I've lost to drug addiction in less than four years.  I feel a little awful that I was such a shitty, insensitive, suspicious, reactive neighbour to him – and honestly tried to avoid him when possible.  I'll not shake off that shame. I was overprotective of my family and chose to demonize him as a regular criminal rather than offer any useful understanding. My condolences go out to his family and friends.  When will Cincinnati get its priorities right and actually tackle the drug epidemic head-on?  There are hundreds of simple effective things we can do today – needle exchanges, ending the Drug War, affordable mental health care, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. There can be no real communities while there are drugs as-a-part-of the system and I know I'm not alone in saying that I'm sick of having to move around as each neighbourhood is impacted by poverty, neglect, econocide, ultracruel capital, the lifestyles of the white bourgeois-and-indebted, old-time Ohio backwardness and straight-up racism, allowing addiction to take its devastating hold.