The £7 pill that cost my daughter’s life
A WOMAN whose student daughter died after buying an ecstasy tablet for just £7 has told of her horror at the “normality” of drug use among young people.
Joana Burns, 22, collapsed after taking the drug as she celebrated finishing her university exams.
She was with friends in the Foundry club, at Sheffield university’s student union building, when the pill made her body overheat.
In a statement to police after her death last June, a friend said Joana was not a “regular” drug user and it was a “one-off final fling to finish university”.
Her mother Mosca, 50, warned people taking ecstasy were dicing with death because they have no idea how their bodies will react.
She said: “It doesn’t matter how well one person reacts to it, it might not be safe for somebody else. To some people nuts are deadly. It could have been any one of them or it could have been all of them. They all took it.”
Mrs Burns says her subsequent research has left her amazed how common ecstasy use has become.
“It’s surprising how many perfectly normal, sensible people have tried it at some stage,” she said.
“The people who are taking these drugs are not the dregs of society, which some people judge them to be.
“It’s a cross section of happy-go-lucky young people, that’s the problem.
“Another huge problem with these drugs is the cost. It can cost as little as £2 a pill, I have been told, and the girls spent £7 each that night.
“That is cheaper than a ‘night out on the razzle’ as we used to call it.
“For a student, I’m sure the price of these drugs is very attractive. I just don’t know how we are going to fight it.”
Mrs Burns said taking drugs was “not worth the devastation it causes”.
She added: “As a family, we are still trying to get over our loss.”
Mrs Burns, who is profoundly deaf and separated from her husband, had to be woken by her eight-year-old daughter Daisy when police knocked on their door in Alfreton, Derbyshire, at 5.30am to be told “every parent’s worst nightmare”.
Joana, who also had an older sister Cecilia, 25, has been posthumously awarded a 2:1 degree in maths.
A Joana Burns’ “Girls in Maths” Day was held at Sheffield Hallam University last term to inspire more girls to take the subject.
It proved so popular that a similar event is planned this spring.
An inquest into Joana’s death is expected to open later this year.