poledriver
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Over the last 18 months, 22 British Columbians have died from ecstasy
Cheryl McCormack and her three girlfriends had a lot to celebrate at their slumber party: The school term had just ended, Christmas was just around the corner and their Grade 12 prom was only months away.
They arrived at the sleepover with pyjamas, their youthful naiveté and 14 ecstasy pills.
It was Dec. 19, 2011, and the teenagers chatted about the death, just three weeks earlier, of Tyler Miller, a 20-year-old from their hometown of Abbotsford who had taken an ecstasy pill laced with the lethal chemical paramethoxymethamphetamine (PMMA).
The tragic death of this smart, musical young man was a warning sign the girls shouldn’t pop their pills that night, said Cheryl’s friend Drew Fournier, 17. But the teenagers thought they had bought pure ecstasy, so dismissed any worries.
“We still just did it anyway because we are kids,” Drew recalled.
“We literally said that night: ‘It won’t happen to us.’
“But it did.”
Within hours Drew was making a frantic 911 call after her best friend Cheryl, 17, fell to the floor, unable to speak or move.
Days later, Cheryl, a bright, funny rugby player from Robert Bateman school, was dead. The coroner found the ecstasy she took was also contaminated with PMMA.
The deaths of Cheryl and Tyler galvanized public debate about ecstasy at a time when more than a dozen other young people in B.C. and Alberta had also died after taking the so-called love drug.
Click here to see more photos related to this story
Privately, the mothers of the two victims connected over Facebook and bonded in their grief, vowing to try to save other families from experiencing such an enormous loss.
The result was a shockingly raw video made by the Abbotsford police department, in which the two mothers and Cheryl’s friends tell the haunting stories of these deaths to warn other young people about the dangers of ecstasy.
In June, the video was shown to 15,000 students at more than a dozen schools in Abbotsford, and was followed by emotional speeches from Cheryl’s girlfriends.
The presentation was so successful that it is being taken on the road. It will be shown to a school in Langley in October, and several other B.C. school districts have also expressed interest to the police.
Tyler’s buddies also spoke at the school events, often shedding tears as they remembered their kind-hearted, funny friend.
“Having to share the notion of one of our best buds dying, it’s tough to portray to other people,” said his friend Jason Peters, 19. “But it’s just the (goal) if you don’t want this to happen to anyone else.”
Tyler’s friends speak frankly about the reason he died.
“I think he took (ecstasy) for fun, but also to experience things in a whole new way,” Josh Williams, 19, said.
“It was a beautiful escape at a terrible price.”
The stories of Cheryl and Tyler are not isolated. Ecstasy-related deaths claimed 15 lives in B.C. in 2011, and the drug was linked to another seven as of July this year.
The numbers spiked in late 2011 and early 2012, when several of the B.C. victims — and at least five in Calgary — were found to have taken ecstasy laced with PMMA.
One tainted pill can kill. And it can kill indiscriminately. None of Tyler’s buddies became ill that night; neither did Cheryl’s pals.
Continued at-
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/metro/agony+ecstasy/7281946/story.html
Cheryl McCormack and her three girlfriends had a lot to celebrate at their slumber party: The school term had just ended, Christmas was just around the corner and their Grade 12 prom was only months away.
They arrived at the sleepover with pyjamas, their youthful naiveté and 14 ecstasy pills.
It was Dec. 19, 2011, and the teenagers chatted about the death, just three weeks earlier, of Tyler Miller, a 20-year-old from their hometown of Abbotsford who had taken an ecstasy pill laced with the lethal chemical paramethoxymethamphetamine (PMMA).
The tragic death of this smart, musical young man was a warning sign the girls shouldn’t pop their pills that night, said Cheryl’s friend Drew Fournier, 17. But the teenagers thought they had bought pure ecstasy, so dismissed any worries.
“We still just did it anyway because we are kids,” Drew recalled.
“We literally said that night: ‘It won’t happen to us.’
“But it did.”
Within hours Drew was making a frantic 911 call after her best friend Cheryl, 17, fell to the floor, unable to speak or move.
Days later, Cheryl, a bright, funny rugby player from Robert Bateman school, was dead. The coroner found the ecstasy she took was also contaminated with PMMA.
The deaths of Cheryl and Tyler galvanized public debate about ecstasy at a time when more than a dozen other young people in B.C. and Alberta had also died after taking the so-called love drug.
Click here to see more photos related to this story
Privately, the mothers of the two victims connected over Facebook and bonded in their grief, vowing to try to save other families from experiencing such an enormous loss.
The result was a shockingly raw video made by the Abbotsford police department, in which the two mothers and Cheryl’s friends tell the haunting stories of these deaths to warn other young people about the dangers of ecstasy.
In June, the video was shown to 15,000 students at more than a dozen schools in Abbotsford, and was followed by emotional speeches from Cheryl’s girlfriends.
The presentation was so successful that it is being taken on the road. It will be shown to a school in Langley in October, and several other B.C. school districts have also expressed interest to the police.
Tyler’s buddies also spoke at the school events, often shedding tears as they remembered their kind-hearted, funny friend.
“Having to share the notion of one of our best buds dying, it’s tough to portray to other people,” said his friend Jason Peters, 19. “But it’s just the (goal) if you don’t want this to happen to anyone else.”
Tyler’s friends speak frankly about the reason he died.
“I think he took (ecstasy) for fun, but also to experience things in a whole new way,” Josh Williams, 19, said.
“It was a beautiful escape at a terrible price.”
The stories of Cheryl and Tyler are not isolated. Ecstasy-related deaths claimed 15 lives in B.C. in 2011, and the drug was linked to another seven as of July this year.
The numbers spiked in late 2011 and early 2012, when several of the B.C. victims — and at least five in Calgary — were found to have taken ecstasy laced with PMMA.
One tainted pill can kill. And it can kill indiscriminately. None of Tyler’s buddies became ill that night; neither did Cheryl’s pals.
Continued at-
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/metro/agony+ecstasy/7281946/story.html
