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CHEROKEE COUNTY, Ga. - A mother issued a heartbreaking warning to residents in Cherokee County during a town hall meeting at Canton First United Methodist Church Tuesday evening.
Michelle Neese lost her 27-year-old son, Keely Warren a little over a year ago to a heroin overdose.
“Did he know he was dying, did he lay there and know for a while by himself that he was dying,” said Neese with tears in her eyes.
Neese said her athlete son became addicted to pain meds after a back injury, but she never thought it would lead to heroin.
“When he came to me and said he wanted help, he said he had been on heroin for two to three years,” said Neese. “I was floored.”
According to the CDC, 45 percent of people who used heroin were also addicted to prescription opioid painkillers.
Through her organization, The Keely Foundation, Neese told her story to a large crowd Tuesday evening, wanting to raise awareness about the dangers surrounding heroin use.
“I wanted to save other families, other mother and fathers and brothers and sisters from losing their loved one,” said Neese.
State Senator Bruce Thompson attended the town hall and hopes to pass legislation in the near future for what he calls a “heroin epidemic.”
“We need to look at what can be done for those who are actually addicted,” said Senator Thompson. “What do we do, to provide some support to get them clean and reintroduced back into society and then long term, we need to look at this and say what can we do to prevent this from coming into our state.”
Former state medical examiner Dr. Kris Sperry said heroin deaths have significantly increased over the past few years and adds that there is a new pattern.
“Heroin was much more of an inner city problem,” said Dr. Sperry. “In the last several years there have been much more deaths in counties away from Atlanta.”
Dr. Sperry said it is difficult to say just how many deaths are related to heroin because the body quickly breaks it down to morphine.
“There is a misunderstanding that, oh well this person must be abusing morphine and not heroin, when it really is the heroin that is the problem, but the body breaks it down very fast and changes the toxicology testing,” said Dr. Sperry.