Smacking Down

In the terrible years of 1999 and 2000, Australia's heroin trade was moving at a furious pace. On certain streets across the nation, dealers whispered offers to almost anyone who walked past, and sales were made on footpaths with nonchalant ease. "It was the height of the madness," recalls Melbourne outreach worker Richard Tregear. The drug was everywhere, and as purity rose so did the risk of a fatal overdose. In Melbourne, paramedics like Lindsay Bent were frantic. During those "crazy couple of years," Bent says, it wasn't unusual to treat 18 overdoses in a day in the cbd alone. It's...