Are We Ready for the Talk on Drugs?

After a week of sitting in court listening to testimony in a case where a 28-year-old Waukesha man faces up to 80 years in the overdose deaths of two people, one of whom was 24-year-old Jamie Hansen of Muskego, I'm worn out thinking of how all of our kids are just one bad decision away from death.

However, it's nothing in comparison to what parents and other family members endure when they struggle to keep a loved one clean and sober and alive. Heroin use is truly a trip down the rabbit hole for everyone and while it doesn't always end in death, it always requires a herculean struggle to keep a family together.

In January, I heard from brave people like . It was Jenny's first time speaking publicly about it and she was very nervous, but her efforts to form a group called Holly's Hope inspired everyone in the room to at least try and match her courage.

Equally valiant was the Bendtsen family, notably Julie, who was an addict to this insipid drug but has emerged clean and living a better life as a much happier person in Arizona. She said it was difficult to return to Muskego because it's where she started drinking in 8th grade, doing pot in high school and eventually heroin by the time she graduated.

And most recently, John Orlando bravely told his family's story of trying to help Jamie Hansen, a daughter to him since she was about 1, in front of a courtroom, perhaps in gaining some justice for the loss of her life.

Yet, I do get the calls from people telling me to rot in hell for telling the story of heroin and how it's stealing our kids and too-young adults. I've also been told that we make too big a deal of drug use, which is probably why the problem isn't getting better.

No matter what your exposure to drugs has been, or your opinion is on how it's covered on our site or elsewhere, I urge you to be brave as well and take part in yet another Drug Awareness Presentation designed to educate parents on the signs of drug use. This one is being held at Muskego High School in room 243 at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 11.

The Muskego Police Department will be on hand to offer information, including Detective Shawn Diedrich, who is the department's drug investigator. Shortly after the guilty verdicts came down in Cobus' trial, he talked with me about the event and said he that often people look at him and say, "Oh that's just a cop talking."

My hope is that in what he has to say, people also hear a parent talking, like so many others who want their experience and loss not to be in vain.