Brushing teeth twice a day and not eating too much sugar are the most important things for good dental health, according to dentists.

But, despite being seemingly simple advice, there are an array of mistakes you may be making when trying to keep your pearly whites in tip-top condition. 

Here, a dentist tells MailOnline the common errors that should be avoided.

Using mouthwash 

It is a go-to habit for many Brits to rinse their with water or mouthwash after brushing their teeth.

But Dr Praveen Sharma, a Birmingham-based specialist in restorative dentistry and scientific adviser to the British Dental Association, says using mouthwash straight after brushing will dilute the benefit of fluoride in your toothpaste.

Fluoride remineralises tooth enamel, reverses early tooth decay and stops the growth of cavity-causing bacteria. It reduces your risk of cavities by 25 per cent.

Using mouthwash or rinsing straight after brushing your teeth can remove the fluoride residue left your teeth which helps protect them from harmful bacteria.  

Dr Sharma said: ‘After brushing, spit don’t rinse, or you’ll dilute the benefit of fluoride.

‘If you use mouthwash, the same principle applies, make sure to use at a different time to brushing.’

Removing the fluoride can increase the risk of gum disease and took decay.  

Brushing less than an hour after eating

If you want to keep your smile white and maintain perfect dental hygiene, experts suggest waiting at least 60 minutes before brushing your teeth.

Cleaning too soon after eating can damage the enamel layer on your tooth.

Your teeth need time to remineralise naturally, especially after eating something acidic, like a fizzy drink.

‘Ideally, leave a gap of between 30-60 minutes after eating or drinking before brushing your teeth, because the mouth needs a little time to clean itself and let the surfaces of the teeth reset,’ added Dr Sharma.

‘You might think that ”diet” soft drinks, fruit juices and smoothies are safe alternatives, but they aren’t: there’s an acid component to many of them which attacks the surface of your teeth, raising the risk of erosion – wearing away the surface of the teeth – and tooth decay.’

Tooth decay happens when bacteria creates a sticky layer called plaque over your teeth and damages the surface over time.

Around 27 per cent of adults in England suffer from tooth decay.

Not using interdental brushes

Pieces of food and plaque can build up in the gaps of your teeth over time.

If left, it can slowly rot your teeth and cause gum disease — they become sore, swollen, and can also start to bleed.

Interdental brushes have small bristled heads that you can use to clean out any hidden food or plaque.

Dr Sharma said: ‘Aim to clean the spaces in between your teeth (where there is space) with interdental brushes at least once a day.

‘It is advisable to do this before brushing. If the spaces between the teeth are too tight to insert a brush, use floss.

‘When brushing, aim the bristles of the brush down towards the gum for the bottom teeth and up towards the gum for the top teeth at 45 degrees.

‘This allows the bristles to go slightly below the gum line.’

He recommends brushing in small, circular motions to prevent a ‘scrubbing motion’ which can damage the teeth and gums.

Not brushing teeth before bed 

While brushing your teeth before bed may seem obvious, research suggests more Brits are brushing their teeth in the morning than in the evening.

Brits who brush twice a day are more likely to brush in the morning (87 per cent) than the evening (72 per cent), according to a YouGov survey. 

Of those who say they only brush their teeth once a day, 70 per cent say they do so in the morning and only 23 per cent clean them in the evening. 

Not brushing your teeth for a night allows bacteria to feast on sugars from food and mouth acids while the body’s saliva defences are down.

Saliva helps wash sugar from your mouth into the stomach and helps fight bacteria.

Dr Sharma said: ‘Brush teeth twice daily with a fluoride toothpaste for at least two minutes to thoroughly clean all the surfaces of your teeth, especially last thing before going to bed when saliva production is at its lowest – saliva helps to wash away the bacteria that cause tooth decay.’

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Updated: 13:17 EDT, 7 September 2023

By Shania Obrien For Daily Mail Australia

Published: 22:42 EDT, 20 August 2023 | Updated: 05:15 EDT, 21 August 2023

Hawaii Governor Josh Green announced Saturday evening that the Maui blazes have become the deadliest wildfires in modern US history, as the death toll rose to 89.  

The disaster surpassed California’s 2018 Camp Fire, which killed 85, and is the worst since the 1918 Cloquet & Moose Lake Fires in Minnesota, which killed 453.

It is also now the deadliest natural disaster in Hawaiian history. Investigators have identified three victims’ remains, but are yet to name them. And they say just three percent of the damaged area has been searched, raising the specter of a much higher final death toll. 

Speaking at a daily evening press conference to update the mounting death toll, Green said fires are already ‘the largest natural disaster Hawaii has ever experienced’, which will ‘take an incredible amount of time to recover from.’ 

At the same press conference, Maui Police Chief John Pelletier said officials are still working to identify the deceased, and would use rapid DNA testing and dental records to expedite the process. 

Multiple law firms have now announced plans to explore legal action against Hawaiian Electric, claiming the state’s largest power supplier may be at fault for the unprecedented wildfires. 

At least one class action lawsuit is reportedly being considered, which could see the company blamed for the disaster that has so far killed at least 89 people and razed over 2,200 buildings to the ground.

‘From what we’ve learned, we believe the Lahaina fires could have been prevented had proper safety precautions been taken,’ said Gerald Singleton, a lawyer involved with the potential legal action, to the New York Times. 

The company has come under fire for allegedly failing to cut power as the wildfires erupted on Tuesday, and a state regulatory filing in April reportedly saw the company name wildfire prevention as its lowest priority. 

As he admitted that ‘none of us’ know how high the number of dead could go, Pelletier said the process was being carried out meticulously. ‘You want it fast, or you want it right? We’re going to do it right,’ he said.

The police chief said the work to locate and identify remains has been challenging due to high heat and humidity on the island, and efforts are still being made to establish IDs. 

‘Every one of these 89 are John and Jane Does,’ he added. 

The same day that the wildfires became the deadliest for over a century, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) estimated it could cost upwards of $5.52 billion dollars to rebuild the wildfire-ravaged town of Lahaina. 

A total of 2,200 structures were destroyed – 1,500 of which were residential.  

Experts warned that the recovery could cost more than expected due to the high number of homes on Maui being constructed primarily of wood, making them ‘very vulnerable’ to wildfires that were previously not considered a threat on the islands. 

Reconstruction may involve material which is more durable and less flammable – such as brick – but that will likely increase costs and construction time.  

In the days since the blaze, shocking images have revealed the 12,000 person town of Lahaina – once a popular tourist hotspot – now resembling an apocalyptic wasteland.

As Lahaina residents come to terms with losing approximately 80 percent of their town, former FEMA official Roy Wright stressed that the daunting cost to rebuild it could increase further. 

‘Every estimate we hear during the first week is someone’s best approximation, and it’s wrong,’ he told the New York Times. ‘We just don’t know enough yet.’ 

Part of the reason so much of the town has been devastated is due to the high number of its buildings being made of wood, according to wildfire expert Thomas Jeffery. ‘Many of the residential properties in Lahaina appear to have wood siding, and a number of them have elevated porches with a lattice underneath,’ he said. 

But for locals who have lost their entire homes and livelihoods in the wildfires, Wright said it is expected that insurance claims will soon flood the island – and he felt people should feel confident they will receive a payout.

While Hawaii is far from averse from a natural disaster, if it does it would typically be struck by tropical crises like tornadoes and hurricanes. Wright said the record wildfires could shake up Hawaii’s insurance policies for good.

‘Hurricane is still your primary risk. Wildfire is going to be a secondary peril. It is, but clearly, it’s not a peril we can ignore,’ he said. 

Because Hawaii’s other islands are also littered with flammable, wooden properties, Wright concluded neighboring residents should consider taking steps to protect against potential fires.

‘This risk is real,’ he added. 

When the blazes began on Tuesday, drought-like conditions caused by a summer of high temperatures and little rain – combined with winds from Hurricane Dora – saw the flames spread rapidly.

With many residents and tourists caught off-guard, some resorted to flinging themselves into the ocean in a bid to escape the blistering streets.

On Friday, days after the fires blistered his town of Lahaina, local resident Kekoa Lansford said he worried the cleanup would take ‘years to fix’.

‘This is not even the worst of it,’ he told the BBC as he pointed to the leveled town. ‘(We) still get dead bodies in the water floating, and on the seawall.’

His fears about the monumental task of rebuilding the town were echoed by Hawaii Governor Josh Green – who declined to give his own estimate at a press conference Friday but warned it would cost well into the ‘billions of dollars.’ 

‘When you see the full extent of the destruction of Lahaina, it will shock you,’ he said. ‘All of those buildings virtually are going to have to be rebuilt. It will be a new Lahaina that Maui builds, in its own image, with its own values.’ 

Officials have been scrambling to find solutions to the crisis, which has seen tens of thousands evacuated while authorities shuttle resources from mainland America.

To aid the rescue and recovery efforts, the Hawaii Department of Transportation said Saturday it would close one of the runways at Maui’s main airport to make way for cargo flights ‘assisting in airlifting goods/ necessities.’ 

Officials said the closure would not affect commercial flights, and desperate families have been pictured crowding airports in hopes of catching a plane out. 

Huge evacuation efforts have also taken place in recent days, with around 15,000 people a day being rescued from the island of Maui in recent days. 

Many of those attempting to find safety ended up in shelters, with BBC journalist Max Matza reporting from one of the facilities on Friday that he spoke to residents who encountered bodies floating in the water.

‘I found two bodies floating against my sea wall,’ said one local, who said he was avoiding listening to Governor Green’s updates because he didn’t want to be reminded of the disaster.

The mounting death toll has continued to rise through the week as Governor Green announced Thursday that the rising figure led the wildfires to become one of the deadliest disasters to strike the islands of Hawaii since it became a US state in 1959.

‘In 1960 we had 61 fatalities when a large wave came through Big Island,’ Green said, referring to a tragedy that struck a year after Hawaii became the 50th US state.

‘This time, it’s very likely that our death totals will significantly exceed that,’ he added. At the time, the death toll was 53, and it rose above 61 the following day. 

The governor added the devastated town now looks ‘as though a bomb hit’ it, saying: ‘It looks like total devastation; buildings that we’ve all enjoyed and celebrated together for decades, for generations, are completely destroyed.’

Man United DELAY making a decision on Mason Greenwood’s return because they want to consult their Women’s World Cup players – and saga could now drag on into next week

By Chris Wheeler for MailOnline

Published: 07:28 EDT, 11 August 2023 | Updated: 20:36 EDT, 11 August 2023

An Australian woman backpacking through Europe says her experiences in hostels are making her ‘ageist’ towards older females who ‘snore’ and have ‘no respect’ for other people.  

In a lengthy TikTok video, Lucy Holz claims ‘older women’ are the ‘worst’ to be around when it comes to sleeping in a shared space. 

The young traveller booked female-only hostels both for safety reasons but also because women are less likely than men to snore at night. 

However, she’s learnt that this isn’t the case for older women who have kept her awake through the night by snoring, making noises, and even blow-drying their hair at midnight. 

‘I really hate to have to say this, but I do. Staying in hostels is making me ageist,’ she began. 

‘I’ve been staying in a lot of hostels lately and I specifically selected female hostels, which are more expensive [and] they shouldn’t be. 

‘Other girls were telling me you should always pick the female hostel not just for safety but also for snoring because women don’t tend to snore as much as men do.’ 

Lucy added how she ‘doesn’t fall asleep very easily’ and earplugs ‘don’t work’, so snoring ‘really effects’ her sleep. 

‘While women may not snore as much in general, I’ll tell you who does snore, old women,’ she continued. 

‘It’s got to the point where I see an older woman walking into my dorm room and I’m like, ‘Oh my god, why are you here?”

Lucy complained that older women don’t just snore, but they tend to be ‘so disrespectful’ towards other people in the dorm. 

During her final night of staying at a ‘horrific hostel’, she claims a middle-aged woman had a shower at midnight then proceeded to blow-dry her hair and wake everyone up. 

Lucy claims the woman kept making noise while climbing into the middle of the three-bed bunk. 

‘Like, girl! You’re in a shared space!’ she said. 

‘Anyway my towel was hanging up on one side, not in her way whatsoever.. she takes it off, throws it onto my bed, like…. awesome. 

‘And of course, as I suspected, she f***ing snores. I was just not built for the hostel life. It’s tarnishing my view of middle-aged women. 

‘I will not be the same person when I return from this holiday.’ 

Within 24 hours the video exceeded more than 176,000 views and others agreed older women tend to be inconsiderate in hostels. 

‘I had an older lady in a hostel wake up at 6am, turn on the light and do a full workout routine,’ one wrote. 

‘And no phone etiquette, they’re always watching videos and TikToks [at] full volume,’ a second said. 

‘Literally! just left a hostel in Switzerland and an older lady was yelling on phone calls late night and early morning every day,’ someone else wrote. 

Another joined the conversation and said: ‘An older woman straight up TOOK someone’s bed at 10pm when they were out bc she wanted that bed more. Moved all the person’s stuff and everything.’

One person said a middle-aged woman kept turning the air-conditioner off overnight while staying in the humid Australian rainforests.  

Another said: ‘I stayed at a hostel in Madrid and an older lady turned on the lights at midnight, then blasted TikTok at like 1am and also snored like crazy!’

One person encouraged Lucy to speak up in future.  

‘You need to be assertive and tell them when they are doing things that are inconsiderate… cause God knows they will tell you on the reverse,’ she said.

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My husband has suffered with flatulence for some time but it has worsened over the past few months. He doesn’t eat excessive amounts of fruit and veg. Can you suggest any steps we could take to resolve this?

Name and address supplied.

We all have gas in our intestines, produced by our gut microbes breaking down food, and much of it has to be passed in moments of flatulence (passing wind anything up to 20 times day is considered normal).

But you say in your longer letter that the odour is offensive. The main culprit for smelly flatulence is the gas hydrogen sulphide, which smells like rotten eggs.

In fact, we know from research that this particular component of wind is actually good for us.

A study in the journal Nature Microbiology published last month showed that hydrogen sulphide improves the health of the intestinal lining.

It’s previously been found to act as an antioxidant, protecting cells from damage; it also encourages greater resistance to certain infections.

Despite this, it’s worth noting that some foods do contain more sulphur, which is broken down into hydrogen sulphide by the bacteria in the gut — and restricting those foods may, to some extent, help manage gas production.

These include meat, chicken, eggs and vegetables such as cabbage, leeks, broccoli, onions and garlic.

Of course, these are just the sort of foods that help feed the good bacteria in the gut, so you don’t want to cut them out altogether.

I suggest that it’s worth bearing in mind that the embarrassing problem your husband has may actually give him some advantage in respect of his health. Perhaps, knowing this may help change your attitude to it.

I have had a glaucoma test every year for 40 years. I’ve now been told to go every two years, because of Government cutbacks. I was advised if I want to have them yearly, I would have to pay. What do you advise?

Eddie Marsh, Newbury, Berkshire.

Thank you for writing in about what is such an important subject to so many people. Around half a million Britons have glaucoma, which typically leads to a slow decline first in the edges of your vision. Left untreated, this may ultimately result in blindness.

The problem is that, in the early stages, vision loss is so slow as to be almost imperceptible; other characteristic symptoms such as blurred vision may not be apparent until the later stages.

That is why screening — checking everybody with or without symptoms — is so important. There are various types of glaucoma: the most common is known as silent primary open-angle glaucoma. Here, fluid in the eye (the aqueous humour) builds up, causing an increase in the pressure within the eye.

We used to think this pressure caused irreversible damage to the optic nerve which sends vision signals to the brain — but recent thinking is that glaucoma stems from a disorder of the optic nerve.

This then damages the control of fluid in the eye. And this pressure then further damages the optic nerve, leading to a gradual loss of vision at the edges of vision which gradually closes in. (Another form, narrow-angle glaucoma, comes on quickly, causing a painful red eye and needs urgent treatment.) Although glaucoma is most common in adults over the age of 70, anyone over the age of 40 who goes for an eye test will be examined by an optician for it.

This involves measuring the pressure in the eye, and checking for deterioration in the peripheral vision. Best practice is to be screened for this every two years — the fact that glaucoma progresses slowly means there is nothing to be gained by testing more frequently. This is not so much a cutback as a sensible policy to ensure that, at a time of limited resources, nobody is missed out.

Those at higher risk — people who have a close relative with the diagnosis — will be advised to have more frequent screening.

If glaucoma is diagnosed then you need to be immediately referred to an ophthalmologist: after further tests, most people would then be started on regular eye drops that reduce the pressure in the eye and the potential for ongoing nerve damage.

My view is that it is acceptable for you to be screened every two years. I understand you are not confident in this but if the pressure in your eyes has been stable and if there has not been a gradually increasing trend over the years, then I think you have little to fear.

Write to Dr Scurr 

Write to Dr Scurr at Good Health, Daily Mail, 9 Derry Street, London, W8 5HY or email: drmartin@dailymail.co.uk — include contact details. Dr Scurr cannot enter into personal correspondence. Replies should be taken in a general context. Consult your own GP with any health worries. 

Alexandra Capelouto was found slumped over on her bed by her mother, Christine, two days before Christmas.

The 20-year-old sociology major at Arizona State University, who had returned home to Temecula, California on her winter break in 2019, had taken what she thought was a batch of oxycodone to help her sleep.

Instead, it was fentanyl, the deadly drug destroying lives across America. The man who sold it to her, Brandon Michael McDowell, 23, was jailed for nine years in February.

But Alexandra’s grieving father, Matt Capelouto, believes the state’s liberal lawmakers also ‘have blood on their hands’.

America’s fentanyl crisis was born in the mid-1990s, when pharmaceutical companies falsely claimed ‘revolutionary’ pills would put an end to chronic pain without addiction.

When regulators finally cracked down on that lie and the use of prescription opioids to treat chronic pain, addicts took to the streets in search of heroin, creating an unprecedented health crisis.

But by the mid 2010s, dealers began cutting other substances with fentanyl, which is much cheaper and around fifty times more potent than heroin.

In 2022, the drug caused around three quarters of roughly 110,000 overdose deaths, – meaning fentanyl is killing around 2,000 Americans a week. Of those, roughly 110 are Californians – approximately 5.5 percent. 

The crisis has ravaged many liberal states, creating deep divides within the Democratic Party on how to tackle it.

Matt Capelouto claims efforts by moderate state lawmakers to hold dealers to account are repeatedly blocked by a minority of ‘extreme, far-left’ Democrats who hold ‘too much power’.

In San Francisco, fatal overdoses are already up by 41 percent in the first three months of this year compared to the same period in 2022, with the vast majority of deaths involving fentanyl.

Even before the recent spike, the city had among the highest overdose rates of large US counties.

But its mayor, London Breed, is pumping $18.5million into opening three ‘safe consumption’ sites that critics say keep addicts hooked on drugs, instead of treating them.

And now liberal parents have had enough.

Middle class families who have seen their children’s lives destroyed by the state’s fentanyl crisis have told DailyMail.com that California’s drug laws are ‘insanity’ – keeping their loved ones in ‘bondage’ to their addiction while allowing dealers to act with impunity.

In many cases, victims are star students and athletes from the suburbs, creating a legion of enraged but educated parents challenging the liberal status quo on the war on drugs.

 ‘San Francisco keeps repeating the same mistakes’

Tanya Tilghman, 53, says she has been forced to ‘rethink’ her whole liberal worldview because ‘San Francisco has gone way too far left’.

What caused her to reevaluate?

It could have been the moment she was surrounded by 10 to 15 armed police officers while her fentanyl-crazed son held himself hostage in their family home.

Or the time she was laughed at by staff at the city’s ‘safe consumption’ site after she posed as a drug addict and told them she wanted to get clean.

But the final straw seems to be the city’s decision to pump millions of dollars into opening three more ‘wellness hubs’, despite having closed its first after a year because it wasn’t helping enough people into treatment.

Her son, Roman Vardanega, 23, became hooked on fentanyl after a long battle with drug abuse that began with Adderall in high school, which had been prescribed to treat his ADHD.

In between, he was also addicted to cocaine, heroin and meth, and ran out of a private Sacramento treatment center aged 19.

By the time his mother brought him back to San Francisco, fentanyl had become unavoidable for those living on the streets, as Roman now was.

The drug made him increasingly erratic and he would repeatedly break into Tanya’s home, prompting her to take out a restraining order.

Shortly after, Roman held himself hostage in her home and was taken into custody.

It was around this time that Tanya got wind of San Francisco’s Tenderloin Center, the safe consumption site that opened in January last year.

Mayor Breed had promoted it as a place that would help homeless people struggling with addiction get housing and treatment, so Tanya wanted to find out if it could help her son when he was out of custody.

But when she visited with a group of other mother’s, she heard music blaring and wanted a look inside.

She returned, posing as an addict, and told workers at the center she needed help to get off drugs.

‘They laughed at me,’ she said. ‘They told me they could help me to do drugs if I had my own.

‘I went inside and there was loud music. I could see people shooting up, smoking from pipes.

‘I saw people who were on the ground who looked like they were passed out. Staff didn’t seem to care.

‘I stayed there for a good 30 to 40 minutes, just to see if anyone was going to check on the people who were lying on the ground. Nobody was checking on them.

‘I was thinking: “If I would have brought my son there, there’s no way he would have wanted to get help”.’

The center closed in December after costing roughly $12million. While center staff reversed more than 300 overdoses, fewer than 1 percent of visits resulted in linkages to mental health or drug treatment.

Tanya is furious at Mayor Breed’s recent budget, which allocated millions more dollars to open three new centers.

‘If the Tenderloin Center was such a failure, why open new wellness hubs?’ she asks. ‘Just to call them that is insanity. Enabling people to do drugs, and then having them walk out of the facility high is a danger to the community and a danger to themselves.

‘San Francisco seems to keep repeating the same mistakes.’

A  one-stop shop for drugs

Jacqui Berlinn is similarly perplexed. Her son Corey, is an addict on the streets of San Francisco.

On the day Jacqui speaks to DailyMail.com, it is his 32nd birthday.

Last year, he also visited the Tenderloin Center for help with housing.

But he got only as far as getting a bottle of water before he spotted a friend in the waiting area and the pair ended up smoking fentanyl instead, his mother says.

‘He nodded off and never got seen because, of course, he was distracted by the drug use,’ Jacqui adds.

Corey has deteriorated so rapidly in the few years he has been on fentanyl that Jacqui has asked him if he could back on heroin.

‘It sounds crazy, but he actually stayed fairly healthy on heroin,’ she says. ‘Now he just looks awful. But he’s still there. He’s still very sweet and kind and has a sense of humor, but he’s more sad than he’s ever been.

‘He says he doesn’t want his life to be like this, but he doesn’t know how to get out of it.’

Just this week, Jacqui spoke with Corey about San Francisco’s approach to the crisis. ‘Even he said to me, “I don’t know what the mayor is doing”.

‘She is not helping addicts at all. Because they’re putting money into wellness hubs that give addicts everything they need in order to use, but they don’t help with getting people off drugs.

‘They allow people to use openly without consequence. They allow dealers to sell openly in front of police officers.’

Jacqui, along with other San Franciscan parents whose children have been stolen by fentanyl, have set up Mothers Against Drug Addiction & Deaths, a group that lobbies lawmakers for stricter penalties for dealers.

They have erected billboards blaming politicians for the drug crisis, including a ‘Welcome to Camp Fentanyl’ campaign calling for California Governor Gavin Newsom to shut down open-air drug markets, where dealers are allowed to sell drugs without fear of arrest.

The Tenderloin Center was situated directly across from the largest such market in San Francisco, where at least 100 drug dealers gather in the sunshine, creating what Jacqui describes as ‘a one-stop shop’ for drugs.

Addicts would buy their pills from the market and then pop across the plaza to the Tenderloin Center to take them.

To make matters worse, Corey has to walk through this scene to get to his methadone clinic.

‘They’re opposed to putting anybody behind bars’

While California does little to help addicts get off drugs, its lawmakers seem reluctant to punish those who supply them.

In April, Democrats struck down Alexandra’s Law, named after Matt’s daughter, which proposed strengthening penalties for dealers.

The proposed law would see convicted fentanyl dealers receive a warning from judges that would act as a precursor to a potential homicide charge if they then dealt drugs that killed someone.

The law was modeled on DUI legislation, which supporters claim has reduced instances of drink driving.

Despite bipartisan support, the bill failed to get past committee stage due to opposition from Democrat senators Scott Weiner, Nancy Skinner and Steven Bradford.

Tensions almost spilled over as the State Senate’s Public Safety Committee debated the bill, as angry parents yelled at lawmakers to hold dealers accountable.

Matt believes the Democrats opposed to the bill ‘willfully misled’ the public by arguing that the proposed law would prosecute dealers who weren’t aware their drugs were laced with fentanyl, with Wiener incorrectly suggesting that those who are caught drink driving after being spiked are not charged with an offense.

‘They’re opposed to putting anybody behind bars,’ he says. ‘They’ll come up with every excuse to make the victim the criminal.’

On Tuesday, state Republicans proposed a referendum on Alexandra’s Law to bypass the committee.

To go to a public vote, it will require two thirds of both the Assembly and the Senate to agree on it.

But Tanya believes the city’s entire attitude to drugs needs to change.

‘San Francisco has always been pro drugs,’ she says. ‘That dates back to the 60s and 70s. They still have the same message that it’s okay to use drugs.

‘But what they are failing to understand is that fentanyl has changed the entire drug outlook. We have so many more people dying, they’re cutting it in all different types of drugs.

‘I don’t understand that mentality. We’re in a city where we’re losing all of the major retail stores because of crime and because of all the drug dealing that’s going on.

‘Putting up more wellness hubs is going to attract more drug dealers and more people coming in and wanting to use drugs and crime is going to increase further.’

For Matt, it took four years to see the man who poisoned his daughter behind bars, but the anguish will never pass.

A year before the sentencing, his wife, Christine, was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer. She was told her disease was not genetic and was more than likely caused by grief.

As a final wish, the couple have just returned from a holiday to the Netherlands, visiting a family with whom Alexandra stayed on a school exchange.

Matt will continue campaigning for Alexandra’s legacy and that of his three surviving daughters, Skye, Brooke and Brittney.

‘Alex is my daughter in heaven now,’ he says. ‘Here I am, three and a half years later and probably not an hour goes by where I’m not thinking about her in some way.’