A single MDMA pill and the tidal wave of grief it leaves behind

It makes criminals rich, gets kids high, forces governments to spend billions on fighting crime, healthcare and drug prevention. It also kills. This is The Ripple Effect, a special multimedia report, exploring the facts and impacts of party drugs. Heading into another hot, long summer of music festivals, it is essential reading.

• The ripple effects of losing a child to MDMA
• Crims cash in on our hunger for drugs
• What teens really think of using MDMA
• Haunting images of generation who died forever young

This single pill has tremendous power. It makes criminals rich, gets kids high, forces Australia’s Federal and State governments to spend billions fighting crime, on healthcare and drug prevention. It also kills young Australians.

Party drugs such as MDMA and ecstasy come in all shapes and sizes including this ominous pink skull

The ripples caused by this single pill are felt all around the world from Chinese chemical factories, drug cooks in the Netherlands, drug-dealing crime lords in Australia, high level dealers and low-level pushers to a friend handing it to another in the moshpit of a music festival.

Those ripples can also turn into a tidal wave of grief for the family and friends of a young person who dies from an overdose — with their whole life ahead of them — only to leave their parents utterly devastated and grief-stricken.

This is The Ripple Effect, a special multimedia report into the world of illicit drugs and the impact on all of those who come into contact with them.

It is confronting, challenging, raw and emotional. It presents the facts and the impacts.

It will at times make you uncomfortable, anxious or angry but importantly The Ripple Effect is also about education ahead of a long, hot summer of music festivals across right across Australia. The Ripple Effect video series is essential viewing for teens and adults.

MORE STORIES IN THIS SERIES

Anatomy of MDMA: What it does to your body

Toxic: How drug cooks are destroying the environment

‘I felt my life force leaving, I felt my body stop’

Young adults jam into the moshpit at Townsville’s Groovin the Moo. Picture: Evan Morgan

Medical staff and police keep a close on eye on the crowd at the Rainbow Serpent Festival.

Every decision a young person makes leading up to putting a pill in their mouth or in the first few, crucial minutes of a friend suffering an overdose could be the difference between life and death.

This investigation busts myths, offers advice and essential information for young people. It also explains the worldwide impact they have of buying just a single pill.

The Ripple Effect examines the origins of drugs such as MDMA, retracing its journey from the palm of the hand of young person at a music festival all the way back to where the chemicals to cook them slosh around in a barrel in China.

Three people were arrested when 496kg of MDMA was seized in joint AFP and Border Force operation in Sydney. Picture: AFP

AFP and Border Force discovered 496kg of MDMA inside this machinery. Tonnes of MDNA is seized every year. Picture: AFP

Emergency services help a distressed young man at the Rainbow Serpent Festival.

Fomo Music Festival attendees are greeted by a heavy police presence, including sniffer dogs, searching for party pills and other illegal drugs. Picture: David Swift.

But this is more than an expose on drugs, The Ripple Effect explores the unabiding ripples of sorrow and heartbreak that every day wash over the families of those who have died from overdoses and the message they have for young people thinking about popping a few “harmless” pills for a bit of fun.

MDMA and drugs like it are illegal. Young people are taking extreme risks with their futures to smuggle them into music festivals — and some are paying for it with their lives.

The choices they make in that moment, in that time, can cause ripples that last a lifetime.

If you or your kids, friends or family end up with a pill in their palm over summer, it is essential reading, watching and listening.

— Special thanks to Jennie Ross-King, Adriana Buccianti, Julie Tam and Julie Davis for their tremendous courage in sharing their stories and to Jane Thomson, Jane Hansen, Nick Hansen, Danielle Le Messurier, Gillian McNally, Andrew Hough, Lillian Saleh, Daniel Murphy, Fuzz Hamzah, Luan Lan, Sam Ruttyn, Rohan Kelly, Brad Fleet, Josie Hayden, Jamie Hanson, Nicholas Eager, Jeff Darmanin and Josiah Brookes for their compassion and dedication in telling them.

Originally published as A single MDMA pill and the tidal wave of grief it leaves behind