Cocaine deaths leave ‘anguish for families’
CHARLOTTE GREEN
thing so stupid as a drug.
“I have seen it first hand. Families have said to me, ‘why did they do this?’ And I can’t give them any answers.
“Every death is hurtful, but when it’s something like that, when it’s taking a young person who didn’t have to die – it’s terrible.”
Mr Barton also carried out the funeral of Adam Cowell, whose mother Andrea Adamson last week spoke of the devastation of losing her son to cocaine to support the Observer’s campaign.
“As a funeral director you see the faces of that person’s family when they’re preparing to say goodbye, and in those circumstances it’s so hard – especially when it’s a funeral that shouldn’t need to take place,” Paul said.
“You build up a relationship of trust with the family and see them in a different situation to anyone else. The one question they always ask is – ‘why did this happen?’
“And that’s what they can’t understand. There is so much anger as well as sadness.
“These are the families where they are told something has happened and they need to go to hospital and they are only there a few minutes and your loved one’s passed away.
“This is what can happen and it’s getting more frequent.”
He added that the Killer Cocaine: Stop the Deaths campaign was shining a light, not only on the deaths of young people to cocaine, but also on the heartache of the families they leave behind and he hopes it will persuade more users to kick the drug.
He said: “I think Andrea is 120 per cent right to make people aware of what’s going on.
“I applaud her and Coroner Michael Singleton for joining this campaign.
“It is showing people that you do this drug and that’s what’s going to happen to you – and not just you, it will leave your family broken. I have seen it.
“Youngsters do not realise the devastation that they can leave behind and that’s why this awareness campaign by the Observer is so important.”