By. CHRIS MIDDENDORP, The Age

It's not Suzanne's fault that she became addicted to heroin at 16. For a while it numbed the emotional pain of the abuse she suffered as a ward of the state. Four years later, she uses heroin three times a day just to feel normal. She never knows how strong it will be and has overdosed six times in the past year. Without the first aid of ambulance officers, Suzanne would be dead - like four of her friends who died from overdoses in the past year.

Suzanne's habit costs more than $1000 a week. She engages in street sex work - the only way she has to raise that kind of money. Suzanne is sometimes beaten by the men who pay her for sex. She needs to spend every dollar she can generate on maintaining her heroin addiction. She sleeps on the streets and often goes hungry. Last winter, pneumonia nearly finished her off. She has criminal records for possession and street prostitution. She can't get a conventional job.