JULIAN Kings paid the highest price for a heroin 'hit'. His death might make a difference to hundreds of other addicts in Herefordshire.

Having heard how Mr Kings, 28, had tried to wean himself off the drug that killed him, county coroner David Halpern called for more 'exploration and direction' to drug treatment options available locally.

Options that could include the county's own residential rehabilitation centre.

"(Addicts) need all the help they can get. They cannot help themselves," said Mr Halpern.

The inquest was told that Mr Kings, of Kinnersley Close, Newton Farm, Hereford, overdosed on a combination of heroin and other drugs in the public toilets at Bewell Street Tesco store in January.

Paramedics fought for several minutes to resuscitate him. He died later at Hereford County Hospital.

In evidence, Mr Kings was said to be a long-term heroin addict who had been 'on and off' the drug since 1996. He would inject daily and repeated efforts to get 'clean' were often defeated by bouts of depression.

Likeable

Mr Kings also went against stereotype, a 'pleasant, likeable' personality who held down a job - as a painter and decorator - and a relationship.

Paul Taylor of the community drugs team DASH said Mr Kings was someone willing to access treatment when he thought he needed to.

The family of Mr Kings felt frustrated that he had not been offered residential rehabilitation over seven years of trying to beat heroin.

Mr Taylor said that DASH regularly took calls from the families and friends of addicts asking for such placements.

But DASH, he said, was a community-based project primarily providing heroin users with alternative medication and practical support. It did not - and could not - enforce residential treatment the way the courts can.

Herefordshire, said Mr Taylor, had no residential 'rehab' facility, and places at those outside the county were hard to come by. So the motivation of a DASH client to come off heroin was critical.

Mr Halpern attributed Mr Kings' death to heroin poisoning, and urged authorities to explore the potential for residential rehabilitation - or something similar - in the county where such centres elsewhere were oversubscribed.