Legalisation plea for parents who lost their son to drugs

Daniel Cowan tragically died in 2016 aged just 29 after being given a dodgy pill.

His dad Andrew Cowan, 61, and mum Margaret Cowan, 63, have been campaigning for drugs to be legalised since his death.

And they said the news that Lucy Hill, 16, had died in an Exeter nightclub earlier this month was a "hammer blow".

Andrew, from Henley-on-Thames, near Reading, said: "Reading about that poor girl I felt that hammer blow all over again.

"We need to get the message out about the effect this has on families.

"We lost a happy healthy lovely boy and six years later we’re still picking up the pieces."

Daniel was allegedly given the tablet by a friend, who had purchased it off the so-called 'dark web', while partying in Scotland.

It is thought that the pill was advertised as MDMA.

But Andrew says tests later showed there was also traces of fentanyl, which is sometimes added to heroin to make it more potent.

Since Daniel's death his parents, who have two other sons, have called for legalisation.

They believe that users could then be confident they are paying for something that is the correct substance and dosage.

They are now part of Anyone's Child, a group of families whose lives have been wrecked by drugs and are campaigning for change.

Andrew said of Daniel's death: "As far as we understand it, his friend ordered some pills off the dark web.

"They thought it was MDMA but shortly after we learned there was heroin in his blood, and a year later police told me the pills contained fentanyl.

"At the moment it’s just dark web poison. Pills coming over from China which are pushed by the Italian mafia and flooding Britain's concerts festivals and nightclubs.

"It’s all over the place and you can guarantee any young person would be able to get hold of it or has been offered it.

"Making them legal would make them safer, not easier, to get hold of. We need to realise how many young people are dying."

Andrew says he wanted to speak out again after the tragic death of Ms Hill earlier this month.

The schoolgirl was on a night out with friends at an under-18s event at Move in Exeter Quay, Devon when she took a tablet believed to be MDMA, an inquest heard.

Police have confirmed that numerous teenagers attending the event took the same drug, and investigations are ongoing into who supplied it.

Andrew,who is a retired wealth management executive, added: "Young people are so influenced by their peer group.

"I always think about how we can help them, but the truth is the way to keep them safe is for the whole system to change so they can say, 'Let's go to the chemist and get some feelgood tablets'.

"There they’d get advice and safety warnings, and there’d be a whole interaction - and imagine what that would do to the black market.

"The pills would be manufactured by pharmaceutical companies and would be as safe as they can be.

"The only solution is to make it legal and safe."