Most people know that drug overdoses can kill, or that drinking while high or intoxicated can lead to fatal accidents. In 2004, drug overdoses killed most of the 20,000 people who died of unintentional poisoning, with the greatest number being cocaine or prescription drug deaths.
But the sad truth is that too often the victims are family members, friends or even bystanders to the drug sale or use. This fact was proven tragically true when Lam Luong threw four small children off a bridge to their deaths after a night of drinking and smoking crack cocaine.
Lam Luong is an immigrant from Vietnam who was living in Alabama with his wife and their three children plus another child of hers. Lam Luong, who was arrested on cocaine possession charges in 1997, argued with his wife during his alcohol and cocaine binge, then loaded the children in a car and threw them into Mississippi Sound. The children’s ages ranged from 3 years to 4 months.
Lam Luong pleaded guilty to the charges and asked for the death sentence.
“The tragic and deadly effects of drug abuse and addiction spread much farther than just the effects on the user,” stated Derry Hallmark, Director of Admissions and Certified Chemical Dependency Counselor at Narconon Arrowhead. Narconon Arrowhead is one of the country’s leading drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers, located in Canadian, Oklahoma. “If he had access to an effective drug rehabilitation, the lives of these children could have been saved. Every year, millions of American families suffer from the effects of addiction on one of their members.
“Narconon Arrowhead helps several hundred people each year recover from drug or alcohol addiction,” Mr. Hallmark added. “With a seventy percent success rate after graduation, we know that the positive effects of this recover ripple out through families and into entire communities. We are able to save thousands individuals and their family members from having to suffer from tragic events like these.”
