The content of this week’s edition of the Simi Valley Acorn says it all:

A centerpiece front-page story.

A letter to the editor.

A guest opinion from a member of the Simi Valley City Council.

So it only makes sense that we should join the chorus that’s banded together to shout out against heroin and the devastating effect it is having in our local community.

Whether we like to admit it or not, our little slice of heaven here in eastern Ventura County is facing the same problem that has taken root in communities across the country. For whatever reason, heroin has rapidly become the drug of choice for suburban American youth, and the consequences are deadly.

No longer should Mom and Dad’s biggest fear be little Johnny or Susie getting their hands on some weed, some pot, some wacky tabacky.

Instead, the very real fear now is that our children are going to find their way into the medicine cabinets in our own homes, pop an Oxycontin or a Percocet to get what they believe will be a quick little high, thereby beginning a dangerous decent into heroin abuse.

Think it can’t happen? Ask any of the hundreds of people, many of them Simi Valley residents, who came out to Monday’s City Council meeting to share their stories of tragedy and heartbreak—people mourning the loss of loved ones who found themselves in the grips of a deadly heroin addiction and were unable to break free before the drugs finally won.

Think it can’t happen? Ask the students at nearby Thousand Oaks and Agoura high schools, who watched their classmate, senior Griffen Kramer, die last October as the result of a heroin overdose.

Think it can’t happen? Go online and read the three-part series written by Thousand Oaks Acorn editor Kyle Jorrey late last year following Kramer’s death. The subject: the growing heroin epidemic that has taken root in the Conejo Valley—a community that, demographically, looks an awful lot like Simi Valley.

The biggest weapon we have at our disposal as we fight this runaway freight train is knowledge. We now know heroin is here, we know it’s a deadly, unforgiving beast, and we know it must be stopped before it takes hold of even one more victim.

It’s time for this community to come together and put that knowledge into action. We may never fully win the war on drugs, but it’s clear that when it comes to heroin use in Simi Valley, this is a battle worth waging.