Talk:Leah Betts

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Thats not even her, thats Rachel Whitear, a heroin addict that died of a heroin overdose, Leah Betts' parents put that picture up to show people the dangers of drugs. I dont see how that affects ecstacy users but that again is not her.

You're mistaken. It can't possibly be Rachel Whitear, because she died 5 years later. See this BBC page. Or see this rather graphic picture of Rachel. She clearly never even made it to hospital. Evercat 21:13, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Indeed. Here is the BBC's page on Leah Betts, showing the same photo we do: [1]. -- John Fader (talk | contribs) 21:18, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Contents 1 Discracefull 2 Drugs 3 Bad Taste? 4 Reliable sources 5 Lead section 6 SIADH 7 Billboard campaign 8 Police response

[edit] Discracefull

How dare you question the photographs in the articles... you show little or no respect for the families of both girls who suffered terrible deaths. fair enough both cases could have been avoided, but it is one of those sad things in life that has to happen i guess. without such cases, awareness would not be out there... thanks to the parent/s of both girls there may be only one person alive today that may have gone down the same path as both Leah and Rachel... RIP girls xxx —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.97.219.2 (talk • contribs)

I cannot get over the utter dis respect of some people..! Katherine 24286 13:49, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Get a grip. Evercat 23:41, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

So right, this article only goes to show the absolute rubbish publicised by the UK government. It clearly proves everything they said was used as a complete scare-tactic. Failed miserably. djm101 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 144.173.6.76 (talk • contribs) 01:07, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

The picture featured of Leah Betts was used on the posters "sorted", I remember them like it was yesterday. Leah Betts died because her parents did not allow her to have alcohol at her 18th birthday party. The tablet she took was very strong indeed, the 'apples' (with the apple mac logo on them) were already well known top quality MDMA. Her parents were plainly idiots, for restricting her from having a good time on the day she came of age. They are completely to blame for what happened. But like all people who know in their heart of hearts they made a mistake, they did their best to blame anyone but themselves. They deny the truth (i.e. water killed her), and create a myth to avoid the finger of blame. Prohibition and poor education killed Leah Betts, and it will go on killing people until prohibition ends. Peta-x 15:37, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but you remember it wrong. The photograph of Betts used on the "sorted" posters was a "regular" photograph of her. Unfortunately, the myth that it was the hospital bed picture - which was widely used in the media at the time - is now so entrenched that many people are convinced that they actually saw it on the poster. Second-hand repetition is now so widespread that even the BBC and ecstasy.org manage to get it wrong.[2] [3] This isn't helped by the fact that there are virtually no images of the real poster on the web, although you can see one example here. If further corroboration is needed, this contemporary article refers to her "smiling face" on the posters. Nick Cooper 16:39, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

thank you nick I stand corrected on the sorted poster, however in South East London there was with out question a 48 sheet poster of her as seen... perhaps it was advertising a news paper rather than part of the campaign in question. Peta-x 13:20, 28 March 2007 (UTC) 13:18, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Drugs

im doing work in science about drugs and its a shocking story if people are still taking drugs especially ecstacy they should think agin look what happened to leah betts they need to think if i was stupid enough to take drugs which i ensure you that i dont if i did and then heard of this story wouldnt you have stopped as whats happened to leah might happen to you so if you need help stopping you should seek help once i saw the video clip if you seen it believe me you would want to stop so next time think and say no

When you have finished your work in science (and, incidentally, one important part of science is to scrutinise and question your results, don't just accept what you're told, particularly in tabloid anti-drugs scare stories), it might be useful to also learn about punctuation. Oh, and English too.

You offically win for the longest run on sentence I've ever seen outside of James Joyce. Maeve 00:01, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Just say no to cars too. It is after all insane to get in a car, people have died and faced enormous physical suffering (far worse than from any drug) from car crashes. Alcohol kills millions but like cars it is legal and makes the gov lots of money. Climbing Everest is far more dangerous than taking drugs but do the gov ban it? Not yet. Basically the laws against drugs are political, please don't add scare stories based only on your ignorance like this is a US pharmaceutical ad, SqueakBox 13:57, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bad Taste?

I would argue that it is in far worse taste to parade around images of your dead daughter in order to support the spread of misinformation through media outlets, 'educational' pamphlets, books, etc. Both the Betts and Wood families were extremely vocal about how their precious, absolutely innocent little children were horribly murdered by taking a tablet (or, in the case of Woods, half a tablet) of E. Naturally, this flies in the face of the facts - which are that both girls died after consuming a rediculous amount of water in a short span of time.

It is a logical absurdity that relatively harmless compounds like MDMA are constantly under the gun, the only reason being that bereaved parents demand SOMETHING to blame on the death of their pure-hearted little angels. I take exception to the fact that these families lie through their teeth and fuel an already obscene situation simply to avoid swallowing the truth: their daughters were neither totally innocent little snowflakes of wonderfulness, nor were they particularly bright. Leah Betts consumed almost 2 GALLONS of water in 90 MINUTES. What the HELL was going through her MIND at the time?

No sane person would drink that much. She wasn't "sane" - her brain was messed up by the drug. What you are saying is that a person that crashes a car and kills people after heavy drinking is equal to the a sober person doing it. In this case, the inability to drive a car is similar to the inability to tell that you don't need to keep drinking water. violet/riga (t) 20:58, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Had they not taken the drug, they would not have consumed a toxic amount of water. It is not unreasonable to blame ecstacy for the deaths. To use the alcohol example, "If he hadn't been drunk he never would have fell into the river." Or you could go as far as mental illness, "If she hadn't been schizophrenic, she never would have killed that person." Cause and effect are relative here. Celardore^Talk 21:03, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

No scientific study has concluded that E effects one's ability to deduce the logic of an activity. MDMA does not somehow magically reduce one's sanity, intelligence or state of mental health. If that's your argument, the burden of proof is on you.

The connection of E to Betts death is extraordinarily loose. Her body would've began giving her signs that she was consuming too much water (vomiting, extremely frequent trips to the bathroom, increased perspiration, etc). It's closer to blame the advice she was given to keep herself well-hydrated on her death.

Ecstasy blatantly effects your ability to think, and that is simply what happened here. Cause - effect. violet/riga (t) 21:57, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

No, it isn't:

'However an official inquest determined that her death was not directly due to ecstasy consumption, but rather the large quantity of water she had consumed, apparently in observation of an advisory warning commonly given to ravers to drink water to avoid dehydration.' (Emphasis mine)

She was given information regarding a single one of the risks involved in taking E (potential dehydration, largely a risk only if you're engaged in rigorous physical activity - dancing at a rave, for example - while on the drug), took it to be one of the only risks involved, and pursued it to a rediculous extreme. To use an analogy, this is like me becoming thirsty and deciding that I want to walk to the store to purchase an orange pop to quench my thirst. Following a sound advisory, I watch-out for cars on my way there - but since said advisory told me to watch ONLY for cars, I don't bother looking-out for trucks, bus's, etc., and I get struck and killed by traffic on my way home. Is it the pop or my thirst's fault (they were, afterall, the collective cause for me taking the risk of going outside)? Or is it my own fault, for failing to recognize that cars were not the only thing that could run me over?

Yes, Ecstasy does alter your perception of the world. It does NOT render you stupid. I would speculate that if Betts had gone to a rave and taken no E, but followed the same advisory, she would still have died of water intoxication (as well, I would also speculate that if she had taken E and not seen the advisory, she'd be alive and well). Again, a lack of intelligence, I think, is our culprit - blaming the substance just allows grieving parties something to loathe and, well, blame.

Addendum: Yes, I realize I sound awfully callous and empty here; this is not my intent. I do appreciate that a human being has died in a quite terrible way, and that's not something I'd wish upon my worst enemies.

On that same token, however, I find it as amusing as I do infuriating that the grieving Betts family would then take it upon themselves to flagrantly wave around photographs of their daughter on her death bed and spew complete fabrications about the cause of her death (blaming, in their own words, 'Just one ecstasy tablet' as the DIRECT CAUSE, completely leaving-out any mention of water intoxication) just because they needed to focus of their hate and anger onto SOMETHING. I've also never had any respect for individuals who lead a charge and shout, 'Stop enjoying your life and taking RISKS! Or YOU could be NEXT!'

You seem to be under the impression that the 'talk' pages are forums to discuss the issue in the article. The talk pages are to discuss changes to the article's content. You make good points but this isnt the venue to do it. Might I suggest you park your soapbox elsewhere 172.203.205.243 22:33, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm a little troubled by the tone of the article, and I think these comments go some way to explaining the problems. The article essentially reads as an attempt by the writers to debunk whatever assertions were made by the media concerning Leah Betts's death, rather than as an encyclopaedic article reporting those assertions and the rebuttals that followed. Most importantly, the article is over-eager to deny that any of the anti-ecstasy discourse after Betts's death (from the government as well as from her parents) was in good faith. This wasn't some wicked conspiracy to deny you your high; it expressed an admittedly slightly hysterical but genuine moment of social anxiety. To read this article, use of ecstasy and/or other illegal drugs is without risks. Certainly, Leah Betts was ill-chosen as an cautionary tale; that doesn't mean caution isn't required. Ajcounter 21:59, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Except that this is nopt the page in which to document all the facets of MDMA. What makes Betts case significant is not that she died after taking a tablet of MDMA, but how the media, her parents, and others reported and "used" her death, and continue to do so, more than a decade later. Fundamental to this issue is not only was virtually everything that was widely reported about her death at the time was wrong and subsequently (in some areas, very quickly) exposed to be wrong, but that the media continues to repeat those same falsehoods to this day, knowing them to be untrue. As such, the only way that the subject can and should be approached is truthfully, i.e by decumenting what was said, by whom, and why it was false.Nick Cooper 00:02, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reliable sources

I've removed (for a second time now) the entire second paragraph, which cites as its only source a pro-ecstasy web site ([4]). This content may all be accurate, but it needs a better source, as that site appears to fail WP:RS#Self-published_sources. Also, I've removed the second part of this sentence: The media onslaught after her death focused heavily on the putative fact that it was the first time she had taken the drug; this was what shocked the British public most. as there is no source to back up the claim about what shocked the public. Again, all content can be restored if adequately sourced. | Mr. Darcy talk 18:09, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

That's a major improvement, and I'm not going to take any of the new content out, but we should be wary of a POV issue here, as the sources used for the remade article seem to be books on the history of ecstasy/rave culture that take a POV in favor of ecstasy's use or legalization. I won't {{pov}} tag it, but I hope that over time we can get some more neutral sources here. Thanks. | Mr. Darcy talk 21:46, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

__________ with respect it is a POV (as you put it) that ecstasy should be illegal... what is a neutral source exactly, strikes me that a neutral source for you is just one that you agree with, surely the most reliable research is done in the field, not from the front parlor of some semi in Essex, as the Betts Family discovered Peta-x 15:56, 18 March 2007 (UTC) ___________

Collins's book is fairly neutral and is concerned with the all aspects of the rave scene, not just ecstasy, but either way it has to be appreciated that these aspects of the case have (inevitably) not been taken up by the mainstream media. This is particularly true of the poster campaign, although who was responsible for it was well documented by The Independent at the time [5], just without highlighting the alleged conflict of interest. Nick Cooper 22:29, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lead section

The lead section should be a summary of the article (not an introduction as such) so the actual cause of death is essential to include in it. Tyrenius 04:33, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] SIADH

I'm sure the inquest revealed SIADH played a part in the death. Not sure where I heard it, but I remember a quote from the coronor (I think) which was along the lines of "she could have taken the ecstasy alone and probably survived. She could have drank the water alone and survived. It was a combination of the two". --Darksun 11:42, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

The quote was here http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4440438.stm --Darksun 11:47, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Billboard campaign

Was the hospital bed photo not used? I've tried googling 'Leah Betts campaign' with no luck. I remember seeing one on a billboard right by my house in Scotland in the mid-nineties. —maxrspct ping me 18:28, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

No. See my comment above, which includes a link to a photo of one of the billboards. Nick Cooper 23:04, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Are you absolutely sure both images were not used on the billboards? I ask this because of that BBC article you say is based second-hand info/misinformation. —maxrspct ping me 23:29, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Contemporary or near-contemporary accounts describe her "smiling face" on the poster, as was also used on the counter "Distorted" one. The picture of her in hospital was released to the press by her family and widely seen, and I think this is a simple case of people conflating the two memories, or they are remembering a different poster. More significantly, nobody has been able to come up with a photo of a version of the "Sorted" poster with the hospital picture, although in one sense it's surprising that photos of even the real one are so thin on the ground. Nick Cooper 08:10, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Police response

In the Police Response section it's stated that "... the only people convicted were three of her friends ... Two of them received cautions, while a third received a conditional discharge." However, can a formal caution be considered a conviction? A caution only requires consent by the accused, but I would have thought that a "conviction" would require a court case with a guilty verdict. Is there anyone who knows more about this kind of thing that could give some input? - Dolph 17:13, 3rd March 2008 (UTC)