29 May 2018
Our founder, director and Dan’s mum Fiona was invited to speak on ITV’s This Morning on 29 May, in response to the terrible news of the loss of two more young lives to ecstasy at Mutiny Festival in Portsmouth that weekend. Georgia Jones, 18, and Tommy Cowan, a young dad of just 20, both died in hospital on Sunday 27 May – the day that should have been Dan’s 21st birthday. Fiona was asked to speak about Dan and what happened, and in particular what parents can do to try to keep their children safe. This was a fantastic opportunity to raise awareness with an audience made up largely of parents, and this interview was then posted on YouTube and in the Daily Mail, which gave it an even wider audience. But the saddest of reasons for being asked to speak.
Fiona shared the sofa with Dr Henry Fisher from The Loop, the not-for-profit organisation whose drug testing service is working at more festivals this summer, alerting users to the risks of the contents of what they’d bought, and giving them harm reduction advice and counselling. There’s been a lot of media coverage since the deaths at Mutiny of the importance of drug testing to reduce the risks – with always the emphasis on the fact the only way that risk can be reduced to zero is by not taking anything at all. Fiona Measham, director of The Loop, reported “We find that about half of the people we see then go on to throw away their drugs or take less – if you identify adulterated drugs people don’t take them.”
