https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2j3823l3k8o
A Londonderry schoolgirl died after taking drugs, including ecstasy, cocaine and synthetic amphetamine, a coroner has found.
Caitlin McLaughlin, 16, collapsed at the end of last year’s Belsonic music festival in Belfast's Ormeau Park.
She was rushed to the Royal Victoria Hospital but went into cardiac arrest shortly after her arrival and died.
Coroner Anne-Louise Toal described her death as devastating, adding that drugs are “a scourge on our society”.
Caitlin’s mother, Leanne, sobbed as she gave her evidence at the inquest at Bishop Street Courthouse in Derry on Monday.
She said her daughter’s death had left her with "a life sentence".
Leanne McLaughlin said she had last seen her daughter, who she described as "a quiet enough wee girl", on the morning of 24 June 2023.
She was going to a Belsonic concert in Belfast after sitting her GCSEs at St Cecilia's College in Derry.
Following her death, she was told that Caitlin had taken cocaine and "two wingers" (ecstasy tablets) on the bus on the way to the concert.
The coroner Anne-Louise Toal said illegal drugs were often mixed with other substances, including rat poison, and even one ecstasy tablet could be enough to kill someone.
Caitlin's death was as a result of going into cardiac arrest after taking ecstasy, cocaine and synthetic amphetamine, Ms Toal told the family.
Traces of all three drugs were found in Caitlin's body after her death, a forensic toxicologist told the hearing.
It was unclear how many ecstasy tablets Caitlin had taken but there were "no safe levels" of taking drugs, the coroner added.
A paramedic who was on duty on the night of the concert said he was called to the Ormeau embankment where a girl had been found unconscious.
It had taken medics only two minutes to get to the spot where she was lying; she had vomited multiple times and was unresponsive.
She was then taken by ambulance to the Royal Victoria Hospital, where she was handed over to staff before going into cardiac arrest.
The inquest was told she was pronounced dead less than two hours after the paramedics were called.
She said Caitlin had her whole life ahead of her after sitting her GCSEs and what should have been a "fun-filled night" ended in her death.
She said the schoolgirl had taken drugs some time before the concert and had collapsed near to where she was to get the bus home to Derry.
The coroner said Caitlin's death had caused devastation to her family and staff and pupils at St Cecilia's college.
A detective constable who investigated the death confirmed that a police file on the case had been submitted to the Public Prosecution Service (PPS).
by ItWasWalpole-alt
30 comments
Saw this on BBC site yesterday. This is very sad. Children at school should be told very clearly about the very real dangers of taking a tablet/powder some random moron has made up mixing with who knows what exactly. A child dying on a night out at a music concert is tragic.
coke AND 2 exstacy pills in one go? at 16, like wtf was she playin at? hardly the dangers of drugs more the dangers of just completely doing something guaranteed to fuck most people up
Seems this story happens every year FFS.
This is why we should have tests available, _just say no” doesn’t work and we need to ensure everyone is as safe as possible
MDMA is nontoxic and cannot cause death. Another reason to legalise it. Sad that people die because of shitty drugs
Maybe teach children the effects of drugs on the body. Teach them harm reduction and what drugs are toxic when mixed. Drugs are no more a danger than alcohol is in society. The fact of the matter is they are criminalised and unregulated. This has been happening for years, how many children and adults need to lose their life before the government changes the regulations. How long before every festival or event has a testing facility to test your drugs before consuming? Drugs aren’t going away. The money spent on “the war on drugs” is a waste of time. Use that money to do good, put it into harm reduction and legalisation with regulations in place. That poor mother loosing her teenage daughter is something I could never comprehend and my heart goes out to their poor family.
2 ffs. Coke wasn’t around in my day but I made a similar mistake once with two pills and found myself in hospital also, this poor kid wasn’t so lucky.
Right in reality at that age you’re going to do whatever to fit in and be “cool”. We all done it and if you didn’t theb fair play to ye but I’d bet you didn’t go out that much.
Coke now is everywhere. Its like telling kids not to have sex, waste of time. Instead teach them the realities and dangers of mixing or doing too much.
Give them an actual education about the effects etc. I’ve told younger ones I’ve worked with when the discussion comes up to start small. That if someone offers you an E either split it or don’t take alcohol too. Plus to tell someone what you have taken in the event that something goes wrong at least paramedic have an idea what to do.
I hate to say but I fear this girl hasn’t taken anything before and when offered just said yes to look cool.
Do they really think they cut all ecstasy with loads of rat poison? Gonna kill their customers?
Better to have a direct and frank explanation of what the drugs do to you, whats a sensible amount and why mixing etc is very dangerous.
The fact that drugs use is bound up in criminality means we cannot have an honest conversation about them, to ourselves and to our children. Drug use is part of the human condition, period, and we need to wake up to that and start to work with it, not against it.
The war on drugs has been going on for 50+ years now, and by any measure it has been a complete failure. This poor girl is a victim of that war.
If we legalised drugs, we would be able to regulate their sale to ensure purity.
When legalised, we can tax them, and this will bring in a huge amount of money to government and almost importantly remove the profits from criminal gangs.
When legalised and taxed, we can educate the population on safe consumption and harm reduction.
Again, this is an awful thing and my heart goes out to that poor girl’s family. Can we work towards it not happening again?
Edit:to all the pearl-clutchers, the drug war has been an abject failure. Drugs are rampant, criminal gangs are making fortunes, here in NI it’s our lovely paramilitary gangs making fortunes, people are dying from overdoses, and thousands have criminal convictions for a soft drug possession. It has not worked. Do you want another 50 years of the same?
I dabbled a lot in my youth. Pills were more common back then than now I think. Double dropped a few times, but I don’t think they were as strong either. Tried coke and speed too, but it was nowhere near as common as it is now. It is everywhere!
I think if parents and schools were to be realistic and understand that kids will most likely experiment with drugs, educating on how to do so safely would save a lot of lives.
There’s enough of a problem with drugs at these events as it is, particularly the Belsonic dance acts marketed towards teenagers, nevermind legalising it and multiplying the problem innumerable times.
Legalisation is not the answer. I would favour instead the Swedish approach of decriminalisation of users alongside appropriate help, with much stronger punishments for dealers and suppliers. Sweden actually switched from a really liberal system, which saw spiralling addiction rates, to the current zero tolerance approach, which has seen great success.
Wtf is the synthetic amphetamine
that should hopefully teach others in her community not to do illegal drugs
I’d bet my house that no rat poison was found at the post mortem.
Sad thing is, there are a portion of the population I call Bible bashers that will look down on this Girl and many like her. Simply because she took drugs. They will say things like ‘She killed herself’ ‘Drugs are for mugs’
you cannot educate these people who think the planet is 3 thousand years old…..
Christ that’s a lot of drugs. 16 aswell. Fuck was she doing.
Was never into pills and coke was after my time thankfully. But I knew bais in their teens who would be throwing back fistfulls of pills on a night out. Maybe everything has got super strong in recent years, but I’m shocked to see so many comments expressing shock at 2 pills
Or we could introduce a form of internment – round up all the drug dealers & suppliers, arrest them. On conviction, hand down actual sentences and not some suspended sentence or community order.
There is no safe heroine etc, someone mentioned it is given for after surgery – it is, but it is offset with another drug to mitigate potential addiction properties.
Legalising the drugs just means that cheaper shite comes onto the market, and by definition means that the quality of the drugs circulated is even worse and likely more harmful. If you have an addiction, you aren’t going to go buy the expensive stuff at a shop.or pharmacy, you’ll seek essential of access.
I despise everything about drugs (I did do weed on a few occasions at uni years ago). It is supplied & dealt by scumbags, and consumed by – I hate to say it, a lot of scumbags. Education, education and more education.
>The coroner Anne-Louise Toal said illegal drugs were often mixed with other substances, including rat poison, and even one ecstasy tablet could be enough to kill someone.
To be fair, a single cup of tea could be enough to kill someone, too – if there’s rat poison in it.
Let’s ban Punjana; the scourge on society that it is.
Cocaine and ecstacy are what’s in the articles headline, and all anyone seems to be mentioning in the comments.
I’d feel pretty confident in declaring it was the synthetic amphetamine that was the issue.
Awful awful stuff
Jesus, what a load of nonsense on here. Test this, legalise that blah blah blah.
If it happened to a family member of mine, find the supplier and paralyse the fuckers. Find out as much about their suppliers before the torture then go after them ……send a fucking message.
What the fuck has this country turned into??
The coroner isn’t helping the overall situation with that level of scaremongering. Generally speaking, drug dealers don’t want to kill their customers.
They want them to keep coming back, so, if rat poison really is making its way into coke and pills, I’d have thought it has to be at the point of manufacture or fairly high up the supply chain at least.
Why rat poison when there are plenty of cheap, inert and relatively safe things you could cut your coke with?
PSNI are worthless
As long as we’re taking drugs, we’ll be dying. Whether or not we ever learn is up to us.
2 pills plus coke and speed is a lot for even an experienced person let alone a 16 year old
people need wise up with comments here this was someones sister daughter
WTF’ an elephant would have keeled over with that amount of gear in them.
It ain’t drugs that are the scourge, it’s her lack of parenting.
It’s very sad that this happened to this young lady. When I was 16 I was addicted to Ecstacy so this somewhat brings me back 23 years to that time in my life when the only thing that mattered was pills.
Of course it doesn’t appear that this young lady was an addict. By all means it sounds like she was just partying and accidentally died through misadventure. I came close to death myself several times and I obviously got lucky. This poor young woman didn’t.
Not to make light of the situation, but I wish mushrooms were legalised. They were literally given to us by mother nature and nobody has ever died from using them. They are also always at the very bottom of most lists of drugs and their harm levels. It shouldn’t even be on there, it’s not a drug (fuck what the law says).
I dread my son ever being tempted to take E’s and shit when he gets to that age. Honestly, if that ever becomes a conversation, I will encourage him to take mushrooms instead.
As a former extreme party-drug abuser (quit them 14 years ago) who, in the last 2 years, discovered naturally occurring psychoactives that just happen to contain hallucinogenic compounds (psychedelics) I can categorically declare, albeit anecdotally and based on experience, that psychedelics should not be classed alongside toxic back alley powders and pills and shit. They are literally beautiful.