THE description on today's Front Page of how Thomas O'Brien met his death makes horrific reading.

If there's been a more chilling account reported in the Evening News, in recent years, we find it hard to recall.

The most unreal aspect of it is that it happened on the streets of Worcester, rather than in some imaginary corner of a Quentin Tarantino movie.

It's a certainty that thousands of people across the Faithful City will be as staggered by that as anything else, yet the facts - the dreadful consequence of drugs on four lives - speak for themselves.

It's not yet two months, of course, since this column was written off the back of a warning that the streets of Worcester were swamped with drugs being sold by dealers asking supermarket-style loss-leader prices.

Within days, that was followed by the lonely death of addict Jason Tandy in a toilet at Shrub Hill station.

That tragedy, in its own way, was just as devastating for his family as the Thomas O'Brien death is for those of the three teenagers found guilty.

Jason's mother's believes the person who sold him the fatal dose of heroin killed her youngest child as surely as he or she had held a gun to his head - as surely as if that person had stamped on it, we might add.

We suggested then that there wasn't a one person in our community - journalist, politician, teacher, parent - who could claim the problem has nothing to do with them. If you were one of them, can there be any way that you're thinking the same today?

Who knows when and where the next spiral of decent will begin in Worcester. Maybe it'll be tonight. Maybe it'll not be far from where Thomas O'Brien was attacked. Maybe it will end with another sickening death.

The critical state of the city's drugs rehabilitation service says it's a real threat. Are you prepared to take the risk that your loved one won't be the next victim? If the answer's no, you must start making your voice heard.