This past weekend, a City of Norwich man died after injecting himself with an overdose of heroin. I don’t know the poor soul from the Bible’s Adam, and I don’t know anything about what really happened.

What I do know is he’s younger than me (I turn 27 tomorrow) and that no matter what walk of life you’ve strayed apart from, any family would be left desolate.

A couple months ago following a heroin raid in Norwich, I began educating myself about the drug, which before this year I can’t ever recall speaking of seriously.

The police blotter now routinely trickles out the possession arrest of a local user. The police tell me that they haven’t seen this kind of resurgence in the drug since the 1970s, which to me, and unfortunately another this past weekend, is an entire lifetime.

I’ve been around the police beat for a few years now and a tragic death is not a rare occurrence, but I’ve never heard of anyone dying due to an accidental, illegal, drug overdose until now and certainly not heroin. There are suicides and accidental prescription mix ups, but this was not either of those.

To have a life disappear inside some dark syringe tucked along our neighborhood streets is something new to me and no doubt to others.