A mum whose son died after being poisoned by "ecstasy" while on holiday in Berlin is now calling for drugs to be legalised in the UK. Nadia Rees from Aberdare said a shift in drug laws would see substances regulated, meaning they would be less likely to cause harm or contribute to organised crime.
Her son, Ben Rees, died in 2015 of multiple organ failure when he took a pill which contained a lethal dose of PMA. He was just 23 years old. According to drug advice website TalkToFrank, PMA is sometimes sold as ecstasy so people take it without knowing. PMA can kill at lower doses than ecstasy and MDMA. It is particularly dangerous as it takes longer to kick in, meaning people often take more believing it hasn't worked.
Speaking of the heartbreaking circumstances which led to her son's death, the 59-year-old said: "Ben went to Berlin for a weekend after he organised a trip with his friends. They were going for three nights and then they went to a festival somewhere outside Berlin. Before that they went to a club and Ben took what he thought was ecstasy.
Read more: My neighbour groomed me and I was driven to dirty houses full of men where I was raped 1,500 times
"It turned out to be not what he thought he was taking. He lost the friend he was with and people took him into their accommodation and then he went to the hospital. He had two cardiac arrests and he didn't come out of the second. He died there in Berlin."
Nadia is now a campaigner for Anyone's Child, an international network of families affected by current drug laws who are now campaigning for change. The website states: "Drugs are currently 100% manufactured and distributed by organised crime groups – there is no minimum age, quality control standards, or duty of care. Our vision is that control of all drugs would instead be the responsibility of medical professionals, such as doctors and pharmacists."
Nadia said if drugs were made legal, it would not be a "free-for-all", instead it would mean regulating drugs to reduce the risks they pose. She said: "What I would like to happen is for legislation to pass so that drugs are sold under licence and regulated. They would be sold by licensed suppliers meaning everybody would know what they are buying. Right now it's like a game of roulette.
"Now, if you buy a bottle of wine, you know exactly what the alcohol content is. If you buy cigarettes, everything is listed on the pack. If you buy paracetamol, we know exactly what we are buying. With drugs, the drug lords and cartels are making a lot of money from it. Legalisation wouldn't be a free-for-all, you would have to register and show how old you are. Currently young people can go down into town and buy drugs from the street corner and they don't know what they're buying."
Currently, Nadia said her main focus is to raise awareness of what drug legalisation would look like in the UK. She said lots of people are automatically against the idea, since society is told to avoid drugs. She said this does not work because drugs exist and people will take them as long as they do - whether they're illegal and unregulated or legal and regulated.
She said: "It's just about raising awareness at the moment. No politician is going to win an election by saying they want to change drug laws because people don't understand or realise what that means. They think 'just don't do drugs'. Well life is not like that. People don't listen to that - people want to have fun and enhance their life. Some people will drink alcohol, some people will try recreational drugs. The difference is one is legal and one is illegal.
"You can't scare people into not doing what they want to do. Kids and people experiment. Drug policy isn't working. It's not protecting anyone really, apart from the people who are making the money - the criminals. It's a huge system that creates crime and danger."
In the UK it is illegal to possess, supply and produce controlled drugs. It is also illegal to import or export drugs, or to allow your premises to be used for drug production. However, it still happens.
The National Crime Agency defines county lines as the gangs and organised criminal networks involved in exporting illegal drugs into one or more importing areas within the UK. Dedicated mobile phone lines are used, or other form of “deal line”.
A common feature in county lines drug supply is the exploitation of young and vulnerable people, it states. Dealers will frequently target children and adults - often with mental health or addiction problems - to act as drug runners or move cash so they can stay under the radar of law enforcement. To groom and exploit these people, gangs will often use coercion, intimidation, violence (including sexual violence) and weapons.
Nadia said whenever she hears news of a young man or boy being stabbed all she can think about is drug gangs. She said: "It's all related. The government could be getting taxes back from the regulated and registered legalisation of drugs. Instead these people are sitting at the top and not getting injured, while the [groomed] little boys on their bicycles who are used to drop the drugs off are the ones being caught."
She added: "To keep our children as safe as possible we need to take the supply of drugs away from criminals and put them under the control of our government. I wish it wasn’t too late for my son."
Paying tribute to Ben, Nadia described her son as intelligent and popular. She said more than 500 people attended his funeral at St Elvan’s church in Aberdare. "He had a graduate job as an events organiser at Swansea University," she said. "He was a DJ at Sin City in Swansea and a pioneer who started a group to encourage women to get into DJing. He was an all-round sportsman and deputy head boy while he was at school.
"Ben was an intelligent young man who loved people and enjoyed life. He had a 2:1 degree [in history from Swansea University] and wasn't a foolish boy; he was trusting. The impact his death has had on our family is devastating. So in his honour I have to try and avoid this happening to other families - although it still does."
Read next:
- Met Police slammed after missing woman found dead in Wales
- ‘I was abused as a child and went to police but the justice system failed me'
- Footage shows man walking to pub with friend's daughter just hours before she stabbed him to death
- Police investigating death of popular lorry driver
- What it's really like working in A&E at a critical time for the Welsh NHS
