Club death exposes level of drug use at top university
DRUG abuse on a shock- ing scale has been revealed at a top university venue following the death of a maths student.
Joana Burns, 22, who did not normally take drugs but was experimenting as part of a ‘final fling’ to celebrate the end of her third-year exams, collapsed and died.
a 20- year- old woman was left in a life-threatening condition following the same students’ union event at elite russell Group institution sheffield University.
Police said both women were believed to have taken MDMA – a crystallised form of ecstasy – at the tuesday Club’s summer Carnival. the rave night has been held by the union for almost 20 years.
But police revealed that only a week before the death of parttime Marks & spencer worker Miss Burns on June 7, officers had visited the students’ union and collected a huge quantity of illegal substances.
they had either been confiscated from revellers or found around the club and in toilets. there were 98 packets of powder, 31 packets of tablets or pills, nine packets of cannabis and four cannabis spliffs.
the union holds club events on most nights of the week and the drugs had been amassed between November and May, before being kept in a ‘drugs box’ to hand to police. Chief superintendent shaun Morley, of south Yorkshire Police – which has asked for the union’s nightclub licence to be reviewed – said: ‘It is apparent there is an underlying issue of drugs supply and consumption at the premises.’
Miss Burns’s boyfriend Lewis Birch said: ‘If anyone is ever thinking of taking any sort of drug – don’t. It has torn my life apart. I am absolutely crushed right now.’
he described Miss Burns as ‘an intelligent, gifted young woman with a beautiful smile’.
her family said she had been named Joana after Joan of arc and had shown the same
‘It has torn my life apart’
‘strength and conviction’ in her studies. Paying tribute on a Just Giving website dedicated to raising money for drug education among students, they said: ‘Joana was a wonderful young woman with so much to look forward to.
‘she will be missed not only by her family and friends but by everyone who knew her.’
Friends of Miss Burns, a maths student at sheffield hallam University, told police how they each paid £7 for the drug before attending the club on June 6. Miss Burns, of alfreton, Derby- shire, took one dose of MDMA before entering the venue. she consumed a second dose in the toilets, after which she was sick and collapsed, her friends said.
she was taken to hospital but died in intensive care.
One of Miss Burns’s friends told police: ‘It was just supposed to be a one-off final fling to finish university. We were all looking forward to the end-of-term parties and functions, including one at the tuesday Club.’
the second woman, also a sheffield hallam student, was initially placed on a life support machine and spent ‘a number of days in intensive care’, according to the police report.
her condition has since improved, although she is not well enough to be interviewed.
sheffield University said: ‘the University of sheffield and its students’ union are deeply saddened by the death of a young woman following suspected MDMA ingestion, and our thoughts are with her family and friends.’