NEWS Knowing dangers ‘can save children’

THE night before Alexandra Ross-King went to the FOMO music festival, her mother Jennie warned the 19-year-old about drugs.

“I’m not saying you’re going to do anything but kids are dying,” she remembered saying. Her daughter dismissed her fears.

She died the following day from MDMA toxicity after ingesting three tablets.

If Ms Ross-King could go back in time, she would have the conversation again, this time armed with knowledge.

“She didn’t think what she was going to do was as harmful as it was, none of them do,” she told The Ripple Effect

“She knew more than I did, I had zero education, I’m 45 and I’m the generation of: ‘Just say no’. I wish I had known more about MDMA, then I could have had a proper conversation with her. I could have said to her: ‘It’s going to be a hot day, MDMA can overheat you, so make sure you stay cool’.

“She didn’t know that, her friends didn’t know that, so for me the struggle is not having that information.

“What we have all learned from the coronial inquest is they all thought they knew what they were doing and what this was doing to their body and how to protect themselves – and they didn’t.

“Half of the friends said: ‘I can’t believe how close I have come to having acute toxicity on previous occasions’.

“They are all dancing in the mosh pit, in the sun, hot and sweaty and, because they have taken what they have taken, or drinking, it doesn’t matter what drug, their mind is not connected to the body to say you are overheating, stop, sit down, relax.

“I just want parents and kids to know how to protect themselves, it is happening, it is normal, people say they don’t want this normalised, it already is normalised,

“Alex is not a one-off, none of our kids were different, or troubled, these kids are no different to any other child.

“Educate yourself on having a conversation, this is the kind of reactions you can have. Just say no, or these drugs kill doesn’t cut it.”