Grieving families rally in Bristol to call for drug law change

Thousands of house flowers were left on a city center green space this week by grieving families calling for drug regulation.

Each of the 4,305 paper flowers laid on Bristol’s College Green on Tuesday represented a life lost to drugs in Britain.

Organized by charities Transform Drug Policy Foundation and Anyone’s Child, the event saw families share their stories publicly.

Anne-Marie Cockburn, whose daughter Martha died in 2013 aged just 15 after taking MDMA, said: “If you put the families’ stories next to any statistic, it brings to life the real harm and the real cost.”

Mrs Cockburn was one of the founding families of Anyone’s Child, set up to give a voice to bereaved families calling for more regulation of drugs that are currently illegal.

The families argue that if the substances can be regulated by medical professionals instead of being produced and sold unchecked by criminals, the number of drug-related deaths would be reduced.

Jane Slater, campaign manager for Anyone’s Child, said: “Here in the UK we have the lowest death rates in Europe and every death is someone’s child.”

The meeting in Bristol was intended to “demonstrate the scale of the problem and the urgent need for change”, she added.

“I’m going to keep doing this until things change – and they will,” Ms Cockburn said.

Her daughter Martha died after taking MDMA (ecstasy), which was later found to be 91% pure, which she was unaware of at the time.

Mrs Cockburn said she “knew nothing” about drug policy before Martha’s death, but the ordeal had made her “a bit of a mini expert”.

“When I realized what wasn’t being done I couldn’t believe it, I was really shocked and actually quite scared for other families when I realized how the policy works,” she said.

“You go to Westminster and see how things work, but I was quite appalled by the lack of awareness on the part of many MPs about this subject and how it affects every community in the UK.

“I just think if you legalize (drugs) you’re going to change the shape of society in every way, in such a beneficial way, but most people don’t realize that.”

The Bristol event was part of a global day of action led by the Support, Don’t Punish campaign, which focuses on harm reduction.