Arguments about what drug is the most dangerous tend to be circular and pointless.

There are those who will say that cocaine, or crack cocaine, is more dangerous than heroin. In the 1960s, people claimed that LSD was merely "mind-expanding" with tragic results. The debate over the dangers posed by marijuana go around and around.

But few would argue that no matter what the pecking order is, heroin ranks high on every list.

Last week, the Bermuda Sun reported that local drugs counsellors had seen something like 130 people approach them for help getting off heroin, a remarkably high number - about one in every 450 people - for a small community like Bermuda.

And it stands to reason that if those are the people seeking help, there must be at least that number, and probably many more, who see no reason to get help.

It is also likely that many of those people will be quite young, because almost all of Bermuda's heroin addicts died in the late 1980s and early 1990s as a result of contracting AIDS through intravenous drug use.

That dark cloud had one silver lining: It put people locally off heroin for a few years.

Inevitably, though it came back, with news reports beginning in the mid-1990s that heroin use was on the rise again, although it was not being taken via needles but by inhalation.

That's no reason to be happy. Heroin taken in any form is highly addictive and ultimately fatal and it is deeply worrying that its use is increasing.

But it is even worse that some dealers are now alleged to be cutting heroin with other substances, such as rat poison, to make a substance that it is immediately fatal and may have contributed to the deaths of two people this week alone.

This is behaviour that is beyond criminal; it is diabolical and whoever is doing it should be brought to justice immediately.

For heroin users, though, this should be a warning - as if any is needed - to get help and get off all drugs. The human cost is simply too high for the community to tolerate this any longer.