Many people often look at the death notices in this and other newspapers and their websites for two basic reasons: First, to see if they know any of the recently departed. Second, to see how their age, health and life compares to those no longer living.In Harford County this year, there have been more young people in the death notices than should be. It's not, however, surprising given the state of the heroin epidemic in this and other suburban counties.To the point, as of the end of August, which was last Wednesday, more people in Harford County had died of heroin overdoses in the first eight months of 2016 than in all of 2015. The tragic numbers are 29 heroin overdose fatalities, with four months left this year, compared to 28 all of last year.One of the more recent deaths was a 17-year-old girl."Her family and friends now mourn her absence," the Harford County Sheriff's Office posted on its Facebook page. "Heroin just doesn't impact a small group of individuals; it touches us all in one way or another."In eight months of 2016, Harford County has had at least 182 heroin overdoses reported compared to 111 at this point in 2015.We mention the latest numbers in the hopes that continued attention on this scourge will somehow beat what, at this point, seems an unbeatable foe.We applaud Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler and the rest of the Sheriff's Office, though we don't always approve of his methods, for continuing to pound the drums in the fight against heroin.No matter our view of some of the methods, we're happy to be able to say that our top law enforcement agency is continuing to fight heroin abuse. Maybe some day we will be able to say heroin has claimed its last victim.