14 Year Old O/D's on "Ecstasy" (Minor updates 3/23/05)

I realise the story is a bit old and most regular readers are probably tired of it, but after slogging through the six pages I need to ask:

***Is there any law or guideline in the US or Australia about not prosecuting people who take a sick (from drugs) friend to hospital? Is there such a thing? Does it vary from state to state?***

At raves here in Australia, there are often ambulance workers and I've always felt that I could take myself or a friend to them without retribution. Perhaps it's naive of me, but I'd like to think that it'd make for some terrible publicity if a person was prosecuted after getting their friend help. If there isn't a law protecting concerned^ parties, there really should be, because laws are ultimately meant to protect us.

^ I love duality :D
 
Here in Wisconsin they recently passed a law changing the old one which prevented you from getting in trouble. Now if your friend ODs on heroin and you call 911, you get arrested if you have any drugs. It's complete and utter bullshit, and endangers the life of god knows how many people...
 
I think the only reasons everybody got hammered pretty hard (mainly the friends) was because this incident was all over the media....and the judge knew it...

Unfortunantly the friends are being used to set an example about drugs in general...

Its all it boils down to IMO
 
Unfortunately the judge/media is focussed on punishing these kids for having drugs, instead of encouraging the correct actions for other kids. Fortunately the correct sequence of actions can be determined from this thread:

1. When your vomiting friend starts to scream, it's definately time to take them to the hospital. In fact, an hour or so of vomiting/retching is a good signal too.
2. Don't bring any drugs with you, and make sure there are none in your house/cars/property.
3. Tell the hospital what she had, and when.
4. If asked where the drugs were obtained: They fell out of the sky.
 
fruitfly said:
I have half a mind to go down to the county courthouse myself to get some accurate information (if that's even possible). :|
Click to expand...

You should be able to, they are public records.
 
Not directly relevant, but an interesting mention here ...

Probation for accused stalker
San Mateo Daily Journal
November 19, 2004

A man who allegedly abused and stalked his girlfriend, attempted to rape another woman and conspired with his sister to intimidate the attempted rape victim received a suspended prison sentence and probation today in connection with the July 2003 incidents.

Francisco Perez, 28, pleaded no contest on Oct. 18 to first-degree burglary and admitted to a prior crime that qualified under the “Three Strikes’’ law. The district attorney’s office agreed to dismiss the other charges against him, including conspiracy and assault with intent to commit rape.

Perez faced a maximum of eight years in state prison. However, Superior Court Judge James Ellis granted Perez, who has a lengthy criminal record, a final chance to straighten up.

Ellis granted a defense motion to strike the prior strike offense as a sentencing factor. He also gave Perez a six-year prison sentence, suspended on the condition that Perez complete five years of probation and one year in county jail. The jail term is modifiable to Delancey Street, a San Francisco-based residential treatment program for substance abusers.

In court Thursday Perez’s attorney William Johnston called Perez “a good man’’ and argued that his troubles are a product of substance abuse.

Perez, the oldest of nine children and the only son in the family, helped raise his younger sisters after the family’s mother died and their father became an alcoholic, his attorney said.

Since his most recent arrest, Perez has participated in Choices, a treatment program for inmates with substance abuse problems. He told the judge today that he regrets his behavior and admitted he had “caused people a lot of harm.’’

Ellis expressed some skepticism over Perez’s apparent remorse. “It’s awful easy for someone to come in here and say all the right things. That’s what a judge wants to hear,’’ he said.

Perez responded that he wanted to be a “role model’’ for his younger sisters, several of whom were present in the courtroom.

“I have seven sisters left, and they look up to me,’’ Perez said.

One of Perez’s younger sisters, Irma Perez, 14, died in April of an Ecstasy overdose — her first experience with the drug.

Thursday Perez said he “played a part’’ in his sister’s death, speculating that if he had not used drugs, perhaps she would not have tried them.

Deputy District Attorney Morris Maya acknowledged that Perez had made “sincere efforts’’ to rehabilitate himself.

“I just think it’s too little, too late,’’ Maya said. “The defendant really has left a path of destruction in his wake.’’

Among his previous crimes, Perez participated in a 1993 drive-by shooting in which his accomplice fired into a home where a woman was giving a party for her teenage daughter. Two people were injured. Maya asked that Perez receive the maximum sentence.

Ellis said his decision to suspend the prison sentence and grant probation was “very close.’’

“You need to understand, Mr. Perez, that I’m giving you an opportunity,’’ Ellis said. He admonished Perez that he must complete the treatment program and that, should he leave for any reason, “You need to understand that, ‘I’m walking out this door and I’m walking into San Quentin.’’’

For her role in the incident, Perez’s sister, Imelda Perez, 26, previously pleaded no contest to attempting to dissuade a witness. She was sentenced to two years of probation.

Link
 
NFL alums organize memorial
Girl's Ecstasy overdose prompts fund-raiser.
By Josh Wein, SF Examiner
February 22, 2005

REDWOOD CITY -- A year after her Ecstasy-induced death, family and friends of Irma Perez are organizing a walk through Belmont to her middle school to raise funds and awareness for the school's new drug prevention program.

Irma Perez, 14, died last April after taking an Ecstasy pill for the first time at a friend's house. Her death shook the usually sedate suburban community and prompted the swift prosecution of three minors and two 18-year-olds involved with her death. Now, on April 23, her sister Imelda Perez will lead a "walk for life" from the Twin Pines center in Belmont up the hill to Ralston Middle School.

"I just want people to remember her," Imelda Perez, 26, said. "I want people to know that she wasn't a drug addict. She wasn't a bad girl."

The event is part fund-raiser and part awareness-raiser. The funds will benefit the NFL Alumni Association's drug prevention program. Between donations for the walk and proceeds from a silent auction to be held at the school that afternoon, the group hopes to raise at least $50,000. That would be enough to help pay for classroom supplies, occasional field trips for the students and begin a scholarship endowment.

The group has been donating its time every Wednesday at Ralston. Three drug prevention counselors, former San Francisco 49er Eason Ramson among them, take over seventh-grade health class once a week for their brand of drug prevention education.

They have been involved with the school since the academic year started in September, and say they're making progress with the students despite recent reports of drug use on and off campus.

A letter was recently sent home to parents after administrators discovered students had been huffing Dust-Off, a common computer cleaner, both in school and in Lorrie Meadows Park in San Mateo.

"We don't want to single out Ralston," said Carolyn Hoskins, the wife of former 49er Bob Hoskins. Her grandson was a friend of Irma Perez. "We're just very proud that Ralston has let us come in and let us practice our program."

Hoskins said she hopes to expand the program to other area schools soon, but for now the focus is on Ralston.

For more information or to register for the walk, call (650) 366-3659 or (650) 787-0756.

Link
 
Sister crusades against drugs
By Dana Yates, San Mateo Daily Journal
March 2, 2005

The sister of the Belmont teenager who died after taking Ecstasy last year is teaming with the Drug Enforcement Administration to warn kids about the dangers of drug use.

Imelda Perez was tapped by the DEA to talk to students across the country about her younger sister, Irma Perez, who died after using Ecstasy for the first time at a sleepover almost a year ago.

“I want to get this word out to the kids about taking Ecstasy and that it can be the first time and you can die,” Perez said.

A week before her sister would have turned 15, Imelda Perez was flown to New York to tell a classroom full of teenagers the graphic details of her younger sister’s final hours.

Her sister’s story is featured in traveling exhibit about the history of the DEA.

On April 23, 2004, Belmont middle schooler Irma Perez took one Ecstasy pill during a sleepover at a friends house. It reportedly was her first time trying the drug.

Shortly after taking the pill, Perez complained of a headache, dizziness, violent vomiting and a bleeding tongue. She told her sleepover companions she heard herself making “noises like a dead person.”

In the early morning, more than five hours later, she was moaning and screaming in agony as her brain swelled, her motor skills failed and eventually she became unresponsive. Her friends tried to help her by giving her marijuana and a shower.

An hour later, Imelda Perez was called to the house to pick up her younger sister and asked not to call 911 by parents of her sister’s friend.

Not a day goes by that Imelda Perez doesn’t rehash those final moments in her head. She’s tried therapy to help her through her anger toward the parents and depression over losing her sister. However, nothing helped her like telling her story for the first time in New York.

She tried to put herself in her sister’s scenario, being 14 and given a chance to experiment. She understands how kids would want to try something new, but few actually know that one pill can kill you, she said.

Perez never imagined she’d be talking to students about drugs and she never expected all the questions to pour out of their mouths. Students asked a range of questions regarding the drug and how it interacts with alcohol, if it affects sex or how it can interact with a pregnancy.

The serious questions have Perez hitting the books to get all the answer in preparation for her next presentation. The DEA is providing her with the correct information and informational pamphlets to hand out to students.

Perez is currently sorting out the details for a trip to Detroit to coincide with the opening of the DEA exhibit there. After that, she plans to talk to students in Belmont and other neighboring school districts, she said.

“If I can change one student out of each group I talk to I would be happy with that,” she said.

Link
 
I'm tired of this fucking story. Not a single version I have read has had facts consistent with any of the others. They have her taking anywhere from 1 to 4 pills, sometimes in combination with large doses of tylenol or ibuprofen, sometimes in combination with a "water overdose," and they have absolutely no proof that it was her first time with ecstasy or whether this was her first "hard" drug experience. They're charging people with tremendous crimes who had really no part in this girl's death - they're charging her friends (shoot me now) and her dealer's dealer's girlfriend!!!! (really, shoot me now. i have no desire to live in a world this irrational.) I really hate to marginalize a teenage girl's death, but it's really fucking hard not to in this scenario. This has been handled completely innapropriately. If they took similar action in regards to drinking accidents and deaths, 80% of the teenage and twenty-something population in America would be in jail or on probation. Fucking shame on all of the people who made this disaster happen.
 
WTF?!

Marijuana: The Myths Are Killing Us
By Karen P. Tandy, Administrator, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Washington, D.C., and Chair, IACP Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Committee
April 26, 2005

When 14-year-old Irma Perez of Belmont, California, took a single ecstasy pill one evening last April, she had no idea she would become one of the 26,000 people who die every year from drugs. Irma took ecstasy with two of her 14-year-old friends in her home. Soon after taking the tiny blue pill, Irma complained of feeling awful and said she felt like she was "going to die."

Instead of seeking medical care, her friends called the 17-year-old dealer who supplied the pills and asked for advice. The friends tried to get Irma to smoke marijuana, but when she couldn't because she was vomiting and lapsing into a coma, they stuffed marijuana leaves into her mouth because, according to news sources, "they knew that drug is sometimes used to treat cancer patients."

Irma Perez died from taking ecstasy, but compounding that tragedy was the deadly decision to use marijuana to "treat" her instead of making what could have been a lifesaving call to 911.

Irma was a victim of our society's stunning misinformation about marijuana -- a society that has come to believe that marijuana use is not only an individual's free choice but also is good medicine, a cure-all for a variety of ills. A recent poll showed that nearly three-fourths of Americans over the age of 45 support legalizing marijuana for medical use.

It's a belief that has filtered down to many of our teens, if what I'm hearing during my visits with middle school and high school students across the country is true. I'm amazed at how well versed in drug legalization these teens are. It is as if legalization advocates stood outside their schools handing out their leaflets of lies.

Here is what students have told me about marijuana: "It's natural because it grows in the ground, so it must be good for you." "It must be medicine, because it makes me feel better." "Since everybody says it's medicine, it is."

[snip]

Link
 
I love this, "they stuffed marijuana leaves into her mouth because, according to news sources, they knew that drug is sometimes used to treat cancer patients." and "Since everybody says it's medicine, it is." I really don't think anyone could possibly that naive. I wouldn't be surprised if this woman made that up.
 
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