Bereaved families call for drug law change

Each of the flowers on College Green represented a life lost due to drugs

Thousands of homemade flowers have been left on a city centre green space this week by bereaved families calling for drug regulation.

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

Organised 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 stories of the families next to any statistic then it brings to life the real harm and the true cost."

Ms 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 substances can be regulated by medical professionals instead of produced and sold without any checks by criminals, the number of drug-related deaths would be reduced.

Families are calling for a change to drug laws

Jane Slater, campaign manager for Anyone's Child said: "Here in the UK we have the worst drug-death rates in Europe and every single death is someone’s child."

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

"I will just keep on doing this until things change - and they will change," said Ms Cockburn.

Her daughter Martha died after taking MDMA (ecstasy) which was later found to be 91% pure, a fact she wasn't aware of at the time.

Ms Cockburn said she "didn't know anything" about drug policy before Martha's death but that the ordeal had led to her becoming a "kind of mini expert".

"When I realised just what wasn't being done I couldn't believe it, I was really shocked and actually quite fearful for other families when I realised how policy works," she said.

"You go to Westminster and you see how things function, but I was quite appalled actually by the lack of awareness from many MPs on this subject and how it impacts every community in the UK.

"I just think that if you legally regulate [drugs] you're going to change the shape of society in every way, in such a beneficial way, but most people don't realise that."

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