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- Leah Betts is dead
Words by Kevin Braddock
When it comes to mainstream reporting of club culture
in the UK, there are myths and there are facts. Somewhere
in between roams the ghost of Leah Betts, the "ecstasy
girl " who slipped into a coma after taking a pill
on her 18th birthday party. The media has refused to let
Leah rest in peace, even though she's been gone five years.
Had she survived, Leah Betts would have been 23 now. The
inquisitive, insecure sixth- form student from Essex may
have done much in the intervening years. However, it's
possible she wouldn't have achieved as much in life as
she has done in her afterlife. Leah's story has been many
things.
Principally, it's a tragedy to her friends and family
and a salutary story of unforgivingly bad luck. But it's
also the tale of a girl sacrificed to her generation's
fascination with MDMA, a gift to tabloid editors and a
prism through which mainstream society has viewed the
murky world of world of drugs and clubs.
Now we think it's time to move the story on before her
tragic legacy completes its transformation into farce.
Whatever the point when myths began to obscure the hard
facts of Leah Betts' death, the basic details surrounding
the event are well known. Seventeen-year-old Leah was
worried that her 18th birthday party at her parents' home
in Latchingdon, Essex, wouldn't go with a bang.
She decided to take ecstasy and bought some from a friend.
On the evening of Saturday November 11th 1995, her party
went ahead. By the end of the next day, Leah was in Broomfield
Hospital in Chelmsford. By Friday November 17th, her life
support machine was switched off and Leah was pronounced
dead.
When Paul Betts, a retired policeman, and his wife Janet,
a nurse, allowed newspaper cameramen to the bedside of
their comatose daughter that week, they were aware of
what they were doing. 1995 wasn't the first time newspapers
had worked themselves into a lather over the E culture
that was gurning its way all over the mainstream.
Initially, The Sun couldn't decide whether acid house
was a really fun thing or society's greatest new evil.
At first they ran a readers' offer to buy smiley T-shirts.
The paper finally checked itself, decided on the latter
and tore into acid house with its 'Evils Of Ecstasy' campaign
in 1998.
Its tabloid counterparts followed suit. But this time
around, the reactionary press realised it had found the
object of an unrequited love affair that had been nurtured
since 1988: Leah was young, pretty, from a good home and
full of potential. But, mainly, she was festooned with
tubes in a hospital bed and she was almost dead.
As the newspaper-reading nation watched the grim tableau
of an ecstasy death unfold on front pages, few were aware
what E was and who was taking it. The effects of hysteria
are far better documented than the effects of E: twisted
minds, excitability, delusions, paranoia, long-term loss
of reason - these are well understood.
If you wanted an example of hysteria in action, Leah Betts
was it. Her story was an anti-fairy tale of a kind tabloid
editors rarely chance upon, and the details of which tabloid
buyers love to read. To find their perfect drug death
story, journalists didn't have to trudge through council
estates, talk to people in tracksuits or travel too far
from their London offices, because the story came straight
to them.
The 'facts' of this rolling, dystopian soap opera were
as follows: it was Leah's 18th birthday; her parents were
ordinary, right- thinking folk from the conservative South-
East; she had never before taken drugs; the pill which
murdered her had been pushed on her by a dealer; and she
was dying innocently from an evil, toxic ecstasy tablet
in her parents' home.
Coverage of her death was, consequently, emotive reporting
at its most overheated masquerading as hard news. On Monday
November 13th, the Daily Mail accompanied a picture of
a dying Leah with the headline, 'The picture her parents
want Britain to remember. How ecstasy wrecked girl's 18th
birthday'.
The next day, the Mail's front page ran, 'It could be
your child: parents of ecstasy girl Leah pen a poignant
letter of warning.', The Daily Mirror reported that a
"spiked E" was responsible for Leah's death,
and headline- writing sub-editors just couldn't find enough
"agony of ecstasy" variants to head up the acres
of print Leah was generating.
For much longer than the week in which Leah's story was
front-page news, a tabloid- reading nation collectively
hallucinated a world populated with the stock imagery
of drug scare stories: heartless drug pushers loomed large,
as did "innocent" victims. There were bedside
vigils, and tears fought back and promises to fight on
against the pushers.
"It was the first time Middle England woke up and
realised what their kids were up to," says Matthew
Collin, editor of the Big Issue and author of Altered
State: A History Of Dance Culture In Britain. "But
it also demonstrated how mainstream ecstasy had become:
even nice, non-rebellious suburban teenage girls were
taking it." And that scared a lot of nice, non-rebellious
suburban parents.
Paul Betts' personal response to the death of his daughter
was to embark on a campaign of firebrand anti-drug evangelism.
The death of his daughter was the ultimate prejudice-
confirming experience, and a coalition of reactionary
anti-drug campaigners, media and politicians formed around
him, establishing Leah as a totem showcasing the evil
of drugs.
The nationwide 'Sorted' poster campaign that followed,
supported by Paul and Janet Betts, confirmed Leah's martyrdom.
Even by the standards of its predecessor (the 'Just Say
No' campaigns of the 80s), the anti-E message of 'Sorted'
was unsophisticated to the point of brutalism: it merely
read, "just one ecstasy tablet took Leah Betts",
on posters illustrated with the same picture of the comatose
girl that had run on all the tabloid front pages.
As quickly as Paul Betts' crusade had gained momentum,
Leah had ceased to become a dead person and was quickly
becoming a myth. And myths, unlike facts, are open to
interpretation. Such was the tenor of reaction to her
case, it would have been natural to assume that Leah was
the first person ever to die after taking ecstasy.
The fact that it represented neither the first nor even
the 51st, UK ecstasy-related death had no bearing on the
reporting of the events. Within weeks of Leah's death,
others were feeing the influence of this "killer
drug". In September 1995, Daniel Ashton had died
after taking a pill in Blackpool, and ten days after Leah,
Michelle Paul ,15, died in Edinburgh's Royal Infirmary
after taking half a pill.
Both cases failed to generate anything like the amount
of coverage Leah's did. Nor was it reported that then,
as now, that hundreds of people Leah's age die every year
from alcohol poisoning. That you're more likely to die
riding a bike or eating a peanut than you are taking ecstasy
mysteriously failed to make news.
Then, gradually, the mythology that had built up around
up around Leah's death began to unravel at is edges. Her
inquest found that rather than being poisoned by a "spiked
E", a "super E" or any other kind of E,
Leah had died from hyponatraemia - liver failure caused
as a result of drinking too much water to counteract dehydration.
Then the "evil drug pusher" that Paul Betts
had vowed to bring to justice shuffled out of his anonymity
in the form of one of Leah's friends, rather than the
hoped-for man in a shellsuit and a BMW. Then it came to
light that the Apple pill that killed Leah wasn't her
first E. Her friend, Sarah Cargill, admitted at the inquest
that they had together taken ecstasy, speed and cannabis.
But these revelations arrived too late to count.
In the national psyche, Leah Betts was already a manifestation
of the formless terror of encroaching E culture, ranking
alongside the smiley face, Mr C performing 'Ebeneezer
Goode' on Top Of The Pops and Keith Flint's scary haircut.
That was 1995. Since then, Noel Gallagher has articulated
the thoughts of half a nation by pointing out that taking
drugs is as normal as having a cuppa, and Brian Harvey
has been sacked from East 17 for admitting practically
the same thing.
In 1997 Jack Straw's son was cautioned after selling a
bag of weed to a journalist. And in 2000, Daniella Westbrook's
nose fell off and several high-profile Tory MPs admitted
to toking at university, solely to make a mockery of shadow
home secretary Ann Widdecombe's proposal to have huge
on-the-spot fines for possession of cannabis.
Finally, the entire advertising, marketing and media industry
learned to talk the language of youth and sell everything
from spot ointment to cook-in sauces to by tacitly associating
products with club culture. How much more 'sorted' could
popular culture possibly be these days? Marginally less
and less as time passes, in fact.
A report by the government-funded drug research agency,
Drugscope, notes that ecstasy use is now levelling off
in the general population, with only just over one in
ten of all 16 to 24-years olds reporting that they have
taken E. Our 2000 drug survey shows that nearly nine out
of ten clubbers have taken ecstasy.
Current thinking suggests around 500,000 doses of ecstasy
are taken every weekend and ecstasy related-deaths hold
firm at around five to ten per year. That would mean that
ecstasy has a 0.00016 per cent chance of killing you each
year. It's impossible to tell if the 'Sorted' campaign
has caused E use to fall. In late November 1995, Mat Southwell,
spokesman for the Dance Drugs Alliance, said: "I
know people who took their first pill the week after Leah
died," he says.
"We were shocked shitless by the 'Sorted' campaign,
but some people rejected it. I remember seeing a guy with
a T-shirt on saying, 'Just one E killed Leah Betts'. On
the back it said, 'Lightweight.' "All the dealers
were selling Apples, and calling them 'Killer Es' People
minimalised her death, rather than taking it seriously."
Elsewhere, 'Sorted' posters were defaced and made to read
'Distorted', and there was a brisk trade in macabre 'Leah'
pills. While clubbers were confirming the tabloid's worst
fears, Tory MP Barry Legg steered the 1997 Public Entertainments
Licences (Drug Misuse) Act into law. It gave local authorities
the power to remove licences from clubs where drugs are
known to be dealt.
Has drug use changed? Our figures show that clubbers are
diversifying, experimenting with drugs like GHB and ketamine.
And they're taking greater quantities of E, but less often.
"'Sorted' raised the profile of ecstasy use far beyond
anything the Government has done, and it's difficult to
know what the impact has been," says Harry Shapiro,
director of communications at Drugscope.
"There's conflicting evidence. I recall talking to
drug users after she died; there's a group of people who
think she was just unlucky, and another group who stopped
using ecstasy but switched to other things (usually amphetamine)
because they thought it was probably safer." 'Sorted'
may have changed some clubbers' behaviour.
But it definitely changed the public perception of ecstasy.
According to a survey of 40,000 pupils by the Schools
Health Education Unit, over three-quarters of 14 to 15-year-olds
rated ecstasy as "always unsafe"; almost three-quarters
said the same for coke.
The jury remains out on the long-term effects of ecstasy
use, but, as a consequence of the media-supported 'Sorted'
campaign, ecstasy has been effectively rebranded a 'killer'
drug, alongside heroin and cocaine. But Paul Betts' campaigning
stance that taking just one E would knock you down dead
went against all the experience of the people closest
to the drug.
Clubbers and their friends were taking pills regularly,
brothers and sisters perhaps saw them taking them for
years and most had suffered no more problems than a Tuesday
comedown. The 'toxic ecstasy' myth pushed in the wake
of Leah's death probably did more to turn a generation
off listening to government drug advice than any other
single act.
If they can't get the basic facts and the basic experience
right, they thought, then how can they know anything?
And why should we listen at all? "Because of the
massive amount of publicity the 'Sorted' campaign had,
people thought ecstasy was far more harmful than it is,"
says Mike Linell of drug support agency Lifeline.
"A lot of young people perceived ecstasy as being
more harmful than cocaine, which it clearly isn't."
"It polarised the debate," argues Mat Southwell.
"It became either 'drugs are good' or 'drugs are
bad'. In fact they're neither: the debate should be over
how people use them and the context in which people use
them.
Ecstasy is not a harmless drug, but the numbers of deaths
compared to heroin and cocaine deaths just don't add up."
Since 1996, Leah has been the corner stone in the vilification
of E culture, the imagery of her death constantly invoked
in much of the press reporting on the dance scene. Etched
in the public memory, Leah Betts has become a self-perpetuating
story.
With selling papers more important than objective reporting
on the dangers of ecstasy, the chasm between what drug
agencies witness at club level and what newspapers choose
to report looks unbridgeable. None of which is good news
for those who consider harm reduction and drug education
to be the best way to prevent ecstasy-related deaths.
"It's unhelpful that the attention is on deaths with
ecstasy," says Mike Goodman, director of Release.
"People working in the field are more concerned about
the other health and welfare consequences of using ecstasy
and ecstasy-like drugs. We know they may be causing problems:
long-term serotonin depletion, effects on dopamine receptors,
potential reduction in memory and cognitive abilities.
They could add up to it being a not very safe drug."
In other words, you're more likely to suffer brain damage
than die from taking ecstasy. Middle-America's blossoming
love affair with ecstasy made a front-page splash last
year.
Time magazine in July 2000 reported how the drug has made
the transition from underground secret to staple of the
suburban US, estimating that almost one in ten young adults
have taken it Several thousand mites around the globe,
meanwhile, Australia's has had its own "ecstasy girl"
since Saturday October 21st 1996, when 15-year-old Sydney
schoolgirl Anna Wood took ecstasy in Sydney's Phoenician
Club and fell into a coma the next day.
When she died, club licenses were revoked, parents outraged,
newspapers put to work conjuring lurid headlines. "And
the negative effect has been the same," points out
Mat Southwell. "Some clubbers now call her Anna Fucking
Woods, because they're so sick of the of hearing about
her case." Ecstasy-related deaths like Leah's aren't
unique to Britain. Nor, it seems, is it uniquely British
behaviour to manipulate the truth.
Speaking to Paul Betts, it's clear he still lives with
the ghost of his daughter. The retired policeman remains
the high-profile anti-drug spokesman he became in 1995.
He often addresses schools on the danger of drugs and
gives quotes on any drug-related topic to newspapers.
For instance, on September 29th 1997, The Guardian reports
that Jack Straw brushed aside calls for decriminalisation.
He was supported by Paul Betts. On January 12th 1999,
The Northern Echo reported that Paul Betts was astounded
at proposals to set up "special recovery rooms"
for clubbers in North-East clubs.
On April 3rd 2000, the Daily Telegraph reported on Jack
Straw's acknowledgement that there was "coherent
argument" in favour of legalising cannabis. His stance
was criticised by Paul Betts; needless to say, he remains
fiercely opposed to liberalisation of drug laws of the
kind proposed by the Police Federation in March last year.
Stonewalled by what he views as government inaction -
"Nobody gives a shit about young people using drugs,"
he says - he has given up campaigning in England, and
he and his wife now live and continue their work in Scotland.
In conversation with him, it's clear he is frustrated
by having to trot out his arguments, which sometimes conform
to no logic other than his own, and dismiss the same counter
arguments as he has been hearing for the past five years.
Paul Betts admits that five years ago he was "as
ignorant as the vast majority of the public" about
ecstasy. His hardline attitude to "killer E"
remains as dogmatic as ever, and though he describes his
campaign as providing "accurate, reliable information",
his facts often sound questionable (example: "Anyone
who's used 20 or more tablets in their life will have
destroyed more than 20 per cent of memory recall").
What's perhaps more questionable is that he regards harm
reduction measures as, "A, defeating the object and
B, giving false information." On the assumption that
some people want to use drugs, shouldn't it be made as
safe as possible for them? "That's a very bad assumption,"
he says. "It's a fallacy that young people will all
want to use drugs.
Why have we, as the vast majority, got to step back and
say, 'go ahead, do it'. Why are we so scared to say, 'don't
do it, its bloody stupid'?" Aren't you more scared
to say, if people are going to use ecstasy, let's help
make it safe? "How can you have safe places to use
ecstasy?" Well, many clubs are overcrowded, don't
have free water or chill-out spaces.
"How many people have died from over-heating? Nobody.
I have my daughter's death certificate: on there, it's
very simple, it says she died of ecstasy poisoning. You've
probably read that she drank too much water or she had
a bad tablet or that it wasn't the first time she ever
took it. But those are lies put around to continue the
sale of ecstasy.
Because if people knew it wasn't safe, sales would drop
off and the dealers don't want that. "I think some
people are sick and tired of the Leah Betts story,"
he continues. "But I would like to think that somewhere
along the line, the media are trying to inform people
about drugs." Paul Betts' ceaseless campaigning is
motivated by a terrible family tragedy.
But as the pact he made with the media matures, who is
now using who? As a moral authority to bolster the media's
circulation-hiking drug scares, Paul Betts is permanently
on call, his experience conveniently available to short
circuit the debate around any vaguely drugs tolerant message.
When it comes to acting as a media- friendly authority
on drugs, his own simplistic stance - don't take drugs
because they will kill you - may speak directly to worried
parents, but it's a contradiction with the common experience
of ecstasy use among clubbers, not to mention with expert
opinion.
"Paul Betts' campaign focuses on one specific aspect
of ecstasy use," says Mike Goodman. "And the
Leah Betts story bars a more sophisticated response to
taking drugs. We're being guilt-tripped into toeing the
line, and that prevents some of ecstasy's other problems
getting the airtime they deserve."
Five years on, where have we got? The media is starting
to calm down, says Harry Shapiro of the Institute For
The Study Of Drug Dependence. "You've got to pick
your media," he confirms, "but ecstasy deaths
don't seem to command the front page news the way they
used to."
"The agenda is still about selling papers, not reducing
harm," adds Matthew Collin. "That's why E is
covered so little in the press these days - it's unremarkable
and it's mainstream. It's hardly 'news' any more. So far,
it hasn't proved a major public health problem - unlike
the massive increase in heroin addiction.
There has been significant shifting in many papers' stance
on the issue of drugs and there is more appetite for a
serious debate on drugs now than ever." Drugscope's
Media Award for Balanced And Informative Reporting this
year went to Blakeway Productions' BBC1 documentary on
Leah Betts, The Girl Next Door, shown in March 2000.
The award, believes producer Jenny Clayton, was given
for the programme's portrayal of Leah as a 17-year-old
student, daughter and friend, instead of as a salutary
example of the evils of drugs. The fact is that for much
of Britain's media, the Leah Betts myth has exhausted
is usefulness.
A recent story in the Daily Mail, on December 7th 2000,
was run under the truly 1988-vintage headline of, 'Dance
drugs threaten our brightest youngsters', and reported
on how the lives of "scores of thousands of bright
young professionals" are being ruined by the drugs
that are intrinsically linked to dance culture.
And even tabloids are becoming aware of the quandary they're
in. "They have is a hypocritical approach to drugs,"
says The Guardian's home affairs editor Alan Travis. "They
know some of their readership and journalists have experimented
with drugs, so taking a moralistic approach damages their
own credibility among that section of their readership.
A lot of readers just won't believe what they say any
more." Last year Ann Widdecombe was almost laughed
out of the Tory party conference when she proposed on-the-spot
£100 fines for cannabis possession. When even prominent
Tory MPs take a soft line on drugs, it's clear that newspaper
editors are catching up with the sophisticated attitude
to drugs that much of the rest of society has held for
a long time.
But it's no more easy to defuse this cherished myth than
it is to alter the course of history, and short of running
a government- supported nationwide cross-media campaign
entitled '(Not Quite) Sorted', the story of Leah Betts
will continue to colour the wider understanding of drugs.
The final, regrettable result of her story is that she
has become everybody's badge of convenience: propped up
by Paul Betts in his crusade to rid the world of drugs;
publicly knocked down by those seeking wider acceptability
of ecstasy; and, most cynically, exploited by newspapers
to maintain circulation figures.
There is no resolution: no amount of campaigning will
restore Paul Betts' daughter to him, and as long as people
keep clubbing, there will be the occasional tragedy. Amid
the fearmongering and the intent to supply untruths, what's
in short supply is reliable information and reasoned argument.
Lives stand to be lost if only dogma is supplied instead
of fact, and because of that Leah Betts must now be allowed
to die. |
| Contact : bernard.omahoney@bernardomahoney.com |
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