Oh. The mayor of Nashville's 22 year-old son is dead of a drug overdose. It is going to be opiate-related, heroin and its substitute fentanyl, is the only drug that can kill experienced users instantaneously.

There is, of course, an opiate epidemic in America, that has been in the news for a few years now. My son's best friend since childhood, an experienced user, the son of a physician and nurse who did everything to get him off it, died last year of an overdose; fentanyl killed him so quickly he was found with the syringe still in his arm. And, a couple of weeks ago I was listening to NPR and the Palm Beach Florida county Medical Examiner said in an interview that he and his staff are simply overwhelmed with opiate overdose victims.

I don't know how or why this epidemic started. When I was a young person nobody used heroin. In my career in the criminal law I very rarely encountered a possession of heroin case. Until recently. I know fentanyl, more powerful by a factor, is the culprit but I do not know how this started. Max Barry, my son's friend, and thousands of other young people are now gone. Excruciatingly tragic.