[Edition 38] SYDNEY, Sunday: A 21-year-old heroin addict has agreed to give up his habit after his parents told him that using drugs was wrong.

The young addict said he’d been shooting up heroin every day for nearly three years, and probably would have continued had his parents not intervened to warn him of the dangers.

“I thought I was completely hooked,” said the youth. “I’d tried just about every treatment imaginable to get off drugs – naltrexone, methadone programs, cold turkey, even netball. But in the end all it took was a brief chat with my folks.”

The youth’s parents said they got the idea to talk to their son after watching a government-funded commercial on television.

“The ad told us to discuss drug abuse with our children,” said one of the responsible parents. “So we called our son into the living room, sat him down and suggested that he stop using heroin. He said ‘ok’, and that was it. Problem solved.”

“We were only able to do so after we read a government pamphlett which alerted us to the fact that heroin was ‘bad’.”

The parents said their other son had also stopped using heroin after his fatal overdose two weeks ago.

“If only we’d had one of our little talks with him too,” reflected the parents. “Maybe he’d still be with us today.”