A SNIFF OF ECSTASY

Well, now I’ve heard everything.  A 17-year-old girl is dead. A teenage life wasted because she swallowed ecstasy pills at a Big Day Out concert in Perth. But, it wasn’t her fault. The Police were really to blame. The big, bad coppers were at fault because they dared take drug sniffer dogs to a public event. They were to blame. Not the girl. Not the person who sold her the illegal tablets. Not the people who made them.

Friends of 17-year-old Gemma Thoms say she panicked when she saw the sniffer dogs as she queued to get into the concert. She had already taken one ecstasy tablet and to avoid a Police search she quickly swallowed two others. Less than two hours later she collapsed  in the 36-degree heat at the Claremont Showground on Sunday. Was rushed to hospital. And died overnight.

It was a stupid, tragic loss of a young life. But the reactions have been extraordinary. Even bizarre. Police are being abused for scaring the kids. The dogs shouldn’t have been there. They’re intimidating. I must remember that the next time a drug dog crawls all over my suitcase at the airport.

And conveniently ignore the fact that Police warned in advance they’d be looking for drugs. In fact, they confiscated ecstasy tablets, ice, marijuana and arrested four dealers.

But that didn’t stop New South Wales Greens politician Sylvia Hale from attacking them. Ms Hale – or should that be Ms Inhale –is the party spokeswoman on Police matters.

She said the raid was counter productive and a wasteful use of Police resources. To her ‘the only possible explanation’ for the use of sniffer dogs was ‘to ramp up publicity for the Government’s law and order agenda’. As she ramped up a bit of publicity for herself.

Obviously you feel for a family whose young daughter, a hairdresser’s assistant, went off like thousands of others for a fun concert. And never came home.  But questions  should be asked:  If she was scared of being caught, why didn’t she throw the pills away?  Or didn’t Gemma want to waste them?
If the sniffer dogs hadn’t been there she would have kept the pills and swallowed them all later. It could have had the same effect. One of the great risks and unknowns about pills from illicit drug factories is that you don’t know what’s in them. We’ve seen concert goers in Melbourne dropping like flies following a bad batch.

This was a panicked decision by a foolish young girl. A frightened and fatal impulse. It was not the fault of Police officers who probably have kids the same age  they’d like to protect.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

© Copyright Derryn Hinch 2009