anabolic frolic

Ravers, hear their cries


The Province


Monday, November 05, 2001

They're almost always described as good kids, especially by their parents.

And who's about to argue with a grief-stricken mom and dad whose child has just died because of some stupid mistake?

Like using ecstasy.

It's not as though there's an information black-out on the dire consequences of ingesting spiked drugs -- particularly the so-called love drug or XTC which everyone knows is as plentiful at raves as sweets at a candy shop.

Schools talk about the ill-effects, ad nauseam. Newspapers, including this one, have published story after story of people dead or dying wretchedly from drug overdoses. Various levels of government have published volumes warning kids of the downside and dangers of drugs.

And there might lie the problem: kids don't heed messages from drug counsellors, news reports and interventionist governments.

They listen to their own.

Yes, 16-year-old Khanh Vo's death after a Vancouver rave last week was tragic and senseless, but it could have purpose if thousands of young B.C. rave-goers and drug dabblers listen to the cries of his anguished parents and weeping friends.

If even a few of them say 'no way' after this tragedy, Vo's loss is our gain.

© Copyright2001 The Province

anabolic frolic

Regina mom on vacation dies from 'bad' ecstasy

Patricia Bailey
Regina Leader Post


VANCOUVER -- A 24-year-old Regina woman and mother of a small son died after taking what B.C.'s chief coroner has confirmed was "bad" ecstasy at a Vancouver rave last month.

"She went up to Vancouver for a vacation, that was all," said her distraught brother, Steve Nguyen, 22, a cook at the family's Regina restaurant, the Vietnamese Garden.

"She doesn't know anything about drugs. I don't think she even knew what ecstasy was or had even seen the drug before," he said in a telephone interview.

Thi-Tung Nguyen was the family's only daughter and lived at home with her parents and 21Ú2-year-old son, Tyler. She came to Vancouver for the weekend and died in Vancouver General Hospital on Sunday, Oct. 28, after taking ecstasy at a rave at the Pacific National Exhibition the preceding Saturday night.

Chief coroner Terry Smith doesn't know how much of the drug Nguyen ingested, but said toxicology results released Tuesday showed it was a "bad batch." A 16-year-old Vancouver youth, Khanh Vo, also died after taking the drug.

Steve Nguyen said his sister didn't know the youth. Steve said Thi-Tung was staying with friends in Vancouver that he had never met.

Regina has never experienced an ecstasy-related death, according to a Regina Police Service spokesman.

"We do have ecstasy in town," Sgt. Rick Bourassa said late Tuesday. "We have not had any deaths that have been attributed to that."

Death usually occurs through heat stroke, as drugged people dance and party without regard to their fluid loss, or, conversely, through overhydration as they consume too much water, Bourassa said.

Steve Nguyen said he is certain his sister had never been to a rave or used the drug before, "but to tell you the truth, I have no idea what happened."

Steve said the family was expecting his sister back Sunday morning when they received a call from Thi-Tung's 28-year-old uncle, who lives in Vancouver. Steve, his parents and brother left the restaurant where they spend most of their waking hours and flew to Vancouver to be at Thi-Tung's bedside.

"When we got there, we had already come to terms with the fact that she was brain dead. But we still kept up hope that she would wake up. We were trying to talk to her," he said.

The family arrived at the hospital at 6 p.m. on Oct. 28. At 10:30 p.m., Thi-Tung was pronounced dead.

Steve said his parents and grandparents -- all of whom live in Regina -- still can't believe his sister is dead. His grandparents were so devastated by the loss that they convinced Thi-Tung's 28-year-old uncle to come back to Regina from Vancouver: "My grandparents are afraid it's going to happen to him too, so they moved him back here."

Thi-Tung -- who was studying to be a computer technician at a Regina college -- was born in Vietnam and came to Canada with her two brothers and parents in 1992. Her brother described his sister as someone who was "very fun to be around and very friendly."

Thi-Tung married three years ago but was separated from her husband. After her death, her son moved to live with her former husband's family. Steve said his family desperately wants to keep the connection with her son.

"I think his dad is going to look after him, but we want some time with the baby ... We look at him as our own."

The family had a Buddhist service for Thi-Tung Nguyen in Regina on Nov. 4.

In addition to the two deaths on Oct. 28, a third suspected ecstasy overdose in southern B.C. occurred on Nov. 1, when a 21-year-old Vancouver woman collapsed outside the Sugar Night Club in Victoria at 4:30 a.m. She is now in hospital.

Until these most recent cases, the coroner's office had linked three deaths in British Columbia to ecstasy, and another two to MDA, a different drug from the same family as ecstasy.

On Tuesday, the chief coroner renewed his call for anyone in possession of ecstacy to dispose of it in a safe manner.

© Copyright 2001 Regina Leader Post

anabolic frolic

Tears and drug warnings at funeral for a friend

Gregory Middleton
The Province


Friday, November 02, 2001

The mother of 16-year-old Khanh Vo -- who died of a suspected ecstasy overdose -- collapsed on the floor at his funeral yesterday.

"He was a good boy," Chieu Vo said, sobbing. "Every day I wake and think I should be telling him to go to school. This morning I think I should tell him to take his umbrella."

Lapsing into her native Vietnamese language, she blamed herself for her son's death.

"You were a good mama," a grief counsellor repeatedly told her. "What happened was a terrible accident."

Khanh left the family home Saturday night to go to a city-licensed rave, an all-night dance called Spooky-6, at the PNE.

His family received a phone call from Burnaby Hospital at 7:05 a.m. Sunday to say he was in hospital with a suspected drug overdose. By the time they got there, he was dead.

A 24-year-old woman, whose identity has not been released, also died after taking drugs at the rave. Tests to determine what the victims took will take several weeks to complete.

Many of the 4,500 teens at the rave took drugs, according to Khanh's friends, who packed Glenhaven Funeral Home on East Hastings.

Ecstacy, X or E, is methylenedioxymethamphetamine or MDMA, a diet drug that gives a feeling of well-being and emotional sensitivity in controlled doses. In larger doses it can cause fatal heart attacks or brain hemorrhages.

Friends say Khanh took one pill. It didn't seem to work and he took up to four more.

Some were angry about drug use. "It's not a case that they just got some bad drugs. E's just bad," said Ha Vu, 17.

While some of Khanh's friends were defending the rave scene, Vu and Van Nguyen, 16, condemned the drug-dance culture.

"They go to these dances and take drugs and think they are being bad-ass gangsters and they are so cool," said Nguyen. "They don't realize they are risking their lives and it's their friends and family who pay."

© Copyright 2001 The Province

anabolic frolic

Drugs part of fatal rave mix
Ecstacy was only one factor in deaths, coroner says

Chris Nuttall-Smith
Vancouver Sun


Wednesday, October 31, 2001

Of the five deaths that B.C.'s chief coroner said this week have been linked to the party drug ecstasy, only one death, a suicide by overdose, was conclusively caused by the substance.

According to coroners' reports provided to The Vancouver Sun, one of the deaths involved alcohol, heroin, steroids and ecstasy, one might have been suicide by drowning and another was ruled an overdose of MDA, a drug that is not the same as ecstasy but is in the same family of drugs. A fifth death was ruled a result of MDA and cocaine overdose.

B.C. chief coroner Terry Smith agreed Tuesday with The Sun's findings, but added they do not diminish the risk associated with taking ecstasy.

"I think the short answer is 'Yeah, you're probably right,' but then you get into this whole thing about to what extent did it contribute to the deaths," said Smith.

Smith raised the alarm about ecstasy, also called MDMA or methylenedioxymethamphetamine, on Monday, after two young people died on the weekend after attending a rave in Vancouver at which they are believed to have ingested ecstasy.

"Anyone who may have purchased this drug in the last several days would be best to destroy the drug or preferably turn the drug in for appropriate destruction by the proper authorities," Smith said in a press release.

"The British Columbia coroners' service is aware of five other deaths in the last three years involving ecstasy," the release said.

Smith said an autopsy will be performed this week on the 17-year-old male and 24-year-old female who died on the weekend.

Initial bloodwork on one of the victims indicated the presence of amphetamines, but a full toxicology report to determine what other substances the victims ingested will likely take another two weeks, Smith said.

Many pills sold as ecstasy contain other drugs, police and harm-reduction advocates say. It is not yet clear whether the latest deaths were caused by ecstasy or by other substances.

According to the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse, ecstasy can cause psychological problems including confusion, depression, sleep problems, cravings and paranoia. It can also cause muscle tension, involuntary teeth-clenching, an increase in heart rate and blood pressure and liver damage.

Some research also links ecstasy use to long-term memory loss, the institute says.

In B.C.'s only death conclusively ruled the result of an ecstasy overdose, a 43-year-old man was found dead in June 1998 in a rooming house in Vancouver.

The man had been in legal trouble, had lost his job, had split with his common-law partner, and had previously attempted to overdose on Aspirin, the coroner's report states. Investigators also found a suicide note and 30 ecstasy tablets.

In another of the deaths, in February 1999, a 20-year-old man was found drowned in Victoria. According to the coroner's report, the man had been at a private party and had been seen ingesting "a large amount" of drugs. A toxicology report showed he had ingested ecstasy. He also had alcohol in his system, though the report notes that might have been a result of decomposition.

"Investigation revealed he had been in difficulty with the authorities, had recently broken up with a girlfriend and that his roommate had moved out a few days previous. There was a longstanding history of family problems," the report said.

The man's death was not ruled suicide, accidental, homicide or natural. Rather, it was left as "undetermined."

In a third death, in May 1998, a coroner ruled the cause of death was acute ecstasy ingestion. The report further notes, however, that the victim had been using steroids, had reportedly consumed a large amount of beer and had snorted a line of heroin the morning he died.

In another death, in May 2000, a 16-year-old female died at B.C. Children's Hospital after taking cocaine and MDA, the drug related to ecstasy.

"Since 1998, she was admitted to hospital on several occasions due to acute alcohol intoxication," the report notes. "Since Dec. 1999, she became increasingly rebellious in behaviour and was reported to use illicit drugs and ecstasy occasionally whenever she was in likeminded company. On the evening of 13 May, 2000, she attended a rave with friends."

The next day, she went to a house party where she used cocaine, then suffered a seizure. She died the following day.

In another death, in December 1998, a 21-year-old man died of a brain hemorrhage ruled by the coroner to be caused by ecstasy intoxication. But the report, signed by coroner Jeannine M. Robinson, says the substance in the victim's system was MDA, not ecstasy. The coroner said, however, that MDA is ecstasy. (Chief coroner Smith said that MDA is not the same thing as ecstasy.)

cnuttall-smith@pacpress.southam.ca

© Copyright 2001 Vancouver Sun

anabolic frolic

As we can see, theres a media frenzy going on in BC right now, as there was here a year and a half ago.

Rainbow Brit-E

Oh I love how the people who were defending the scene were 'left out' of this article but the one ignorant comment was added."
Bad ass gangsters? In fun fur and huggung everyone? fuck off

__________________
or Brite

CandyGirl23

I don't think telling people who just lost a friend or loved one to "fuck off" is quite appropriate. They don't understand the rave scene, and after this will probably never give it a chance. My hope after reading all these articles is that education will increase, and people will realize that drugs are dangerous. The people who pop 4 or 5 pills at a time are probably not the ones reading this message board, reading dancesafe's webpage, or doing independant research on the dangers of ecstacy. It is everywhere and that has been stated in some of the articles. The newspeople are also including the reactions of family and friends... It is a somewhat needed mix although it does skew the truth. It saddens me every time a city decides dancesafe is promoting drug use...it has happened in my city and all over the place. I have heard many people say they will never touch a drug after reading the information they provide, and have never been next to someone at the table who says "Gee... this stuff that can kill me looks like fun. Know where I can get some?"

Rytalin

I guess that means there's still hope for us...


*crosses fingers*

__________________
Close your eyes
Forget your name
Forget the world
Forget the people