Police issue new ecstasy warning over death of girl aged 16 after house party
A DRUGS warning was issued by police last night after a teenage girl died following a house party.
Police Scotland said there might be a link between the death of the 16-year-old and certain kinds of ‘ecstasy-type’ tablets.
Anyone who has recently taken the brightly-coloured ‘red bugatti’ and ‘purple ninja’ drugs with distinctive markings is advised to seek urgent medical attention.
The young woman who died after the party in Newtongrange, Midlothian, was taken to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary yesterday but could not be saved.
She was named on social media last night as Shellie Callaghan, with her Facebook page carrying a series of emotional messages from her young friends. Meanwhile, a force spokesman said: ‘Police Scotland is issuing a drugs warning following the death of a 16-year-old female in Newtongrange on Saturday.
‘Inquiries into the circumstances surrounding her death are at a very early stage, but one line of inquiry officers are following is that she may have had access to ecstasy-type tablets.
‘These tablets are known as red bugatti veyron and purple ninja turtle. Anyone who has taken these tablets is urged to seek immediate medical attention.
‘Furthermore, anyone who has access to any of these tablets is strongly urged not to take them. Police Scotland’s message is clear. There is no safe illegal drug and no safe way to take illegal drugs.’
The warning comes only three months after three people – two of them teenagers – suffered drug-related deaths connected to the T in the Park music festival at Strathallan Castle in Perthshire.
Megan Bell, 17, from Seaham in County Durham, was taken to medics after becoming ill in the Slam Tent in July. Peter MacCallum, also 17, from Lochgilphead, Argyll, was found dead in his tent by friends.
The death of Jim Richardson, 29, from Wishaw in Lanarkshire, was also ruled to be drug-related, although he died on his way home from the festival at which police seized 1,000 ecstasy tablets.