As Milton’s Chief Wells will tell you, opiates are a major cause of local crime and social dysfunction. The rash of car and house robbies is largely due to individuals seeking to feed a drug habit. It is a problem here and across the South Shore.

In an article on Boston.com reporter Meg Murphy captures something of the scope and severity of the problem. Consider this: between 2002 and 2007 78 soldiers from the Commonwealth died in Afghanistan and Iraq. During that same period 3,265 individuals died here in MA of opiate overdoses.

Murphy reports of a young man she spoke to who rhetorically asked, “You want to know how to stop a kid on a crazy heroin run?”

“You can’t.”

You can find Ms. Murphy’s article here.