Thursday, June 19, 2008

One out of every sixteen

In an article about the home of Baltimore's mayor Sheila Dixon being raided, the following paragraph leapt off the page:


Seen by some as a divisive figure during her time on the City Council, Dixon has won over skeptics with her shrewd management of an often-troubled city of about 624,000, including an estimated 40,000 heroin addicts.



If that 40,000 estimate is correct, more than one out of every sixteen citizens of Baltimore is a heroin addict. This is alarming, sad, and frightening beyond words.