Police have now released the names of the four people who died after taking what is believed to be contaminated heroin.

Drug users do not normally attract much sympathy, and that is understandable.

After all, the desperate search for money to pay for drugs often involves theft, robbery and burglary, with members of the public the likely victims.

However, the sudden and shocking deaths of these four people will perhaps transcend these concerns.

For behind each of these names, there was a real person who once had family and friends – people to care about and to care for them.

No doubt more details of their lives will emerge as events unfold, and we will have a clearer idea of what sort of people they were, but in some senses we already know.

Like anyone who gets involved in hard drugs, they were somehow lost – to themselves, their loved ones and the rest of the world.

They will have known the risks of drug taking, but did so anyway and paid the ultimate price.

Their deaths are both a tragedy and a tragic waste.

It would be consoling to think that such events might dissuade some from taking drugs, and perhaps they will.

But there will also be others who choose to walk this route, and while that is the case, there will be some who fall.