Just days after experts warned that the dangers of high-strength ecstasy pills were “greater than ever”, three 12-year-old girls in Salford were rushed to hospital on Saturday in a serious condition after taking teddy-bear shaped versions of the drug. The girls, who had become separated and disorientated, were found wandering the streets shortly before 10pm. They told police they had taken the pills mixed in a bottle of soft drink. This story is shocking not only because it involves children taking potent drugs but also because of the intimation that these particular pills, in the shape of a teddy bear, were made specifically to appeal to schoolkids.
The reality is that illegal drug-taking by children at this age is increasingly rare. The latest government statistics show that in 2014, 7% of 12-year-old girls said they had taken drugs, compared to 17% in 2001. In most cases these drugs were cannabis and volatile substances, such as glue, aerosols and solvents. In terms of ecstasy use, only 0.6% of 11- to 15-year-old girls said they had taken the drug in the past year, compared to 1% of boys. None of the 12-year-old boys and girls questioned in the survey said they had taken ecstasy in the last year. There are exceptions though. A 2012 Home Office survey found one drug user questioned had admitted to taking ecstasy when they were just seven.
There have been cases of young children taking ecstasy by accident. The youngest person ever to die from taking ecstasy in Britain was 10-year-old Jade Slack. She took five pills from a family friend’s ecstasy stash in Lancaster in 2002. Later that year, Iris Law, the two-year-old daughter of Jude Law and Sadie Frost, was rushed to hospital after swallowing part of an ecstasy tablet that she found on the floor at a children’s party held at the club Soho House.
Drug workers I have spoken to across the country in the past 24 hours all told me that the use of ecstasy by children as young as 12 is extremely rare and none could recall similar instances. “In 10 years of working in young people’s drug services, I can count on one hand the amount of people aged 12 who have told me they have taken ecstasy,” said Dan Packe, a drug worker at Aquarius, a substance misuse support centre in Birmingham.
It is not yet clear how the girls in Salford got hold of the ecstasy pills and whether they knew what they were taking: a man aged 22 and a 21-year-old woman have been arrested on suspicion of being in possession of a controlled substance. But it was likely the pills were of a high purity. Last week drug charity The Loop analysed teddy-bear pills at Manchester’s Parklife festival and they contained 200mg of MDMA, which is far stronger than pills were in the 1990s.
Girls are particularly vulnerable to overdosing on ecstasy. According to analysis by the Global Drug Survey, young women are three times more likely to seek emergency medical treatment after taking MDMA than young men. In the past three years there has been a four-fold increase in the proportion of young female clubbers who said they had sought medical help after taking MDMA.
It is highly unlikely that the teddy-bear pills the girls took, alongside the R2D2s and Darth Vaders analysed at Parklife, were designed to appeal to children. As one drug worker told me: “I don’t think anyone sinister is trying to aim these pills at children, who have no money and tend to grass people up if they are caught. I guess the marketing thought is teddy bears are cute and huggy, just like people after they take them.”
Dutch pill makers, who produce the vast majority of ecstasy tablets sold in Britain, have a long track record of using a range of childish logos, teddy-bear faces, Transformers, Mickey Mouse, Homer Simpson and, of course, the famous smiley face associated with the drug. But these are meant for an adult market. Contrary to the myth of a childcatcher-style school gate drug-dealer tempting boys and girls with narcotic sweeties, it makes no financial or strategic sense for drug producers and dealers to market and sell their products to kids.
In fact, children are more likely to be selling Class A drugs than taking them. Between 2013 and 2014, 21 children aged between 12 and 14 were convicted for dealing Class A drugs such as heroin and crack cocaine. A further 22 were convicted of selling Class B drugs such as cannabis and speed.
It is alcohol that is the more problematic drug for young girls. Nearly a fifth of boys and girls have drunk alcohol by the age of 12. After that, alcohol use rises more rapidly in girls than boys. By the age of 13, 30% of girls have drunk alcohol and by the age of 15, 70%. This drinking can be hazardous. Last month new figures revealed a steep rise in the number of teenage girls drinking toxic amounts of alcohol.
While young people will continue to experiment with drugs like ecstasy, the case in Salford emphasises the plea made by public health bodies last week that drug education be made compulsory for all schoolchildren. The less children understand the effects of drugs, the more likely such incidents will happen.
