In the mid-1990s, ecstasy was a drug of the suburbs. My friends and I, all A-level students and shortly to become beneficiaries of the final years of higher education that didn’t come with tuition fees, did not fit the model of ‘drug users’ that the media, still in thrall to 1980s heroin hyperbole, fixated on. When we took ecstasy, it was in the clipped gardens of semi-detached houses that had been vacated by parents for the weekend. We popped pills in beer gardens, in rickety small-town clubs with swirly carpets and fogged mirrors or, in summer, in the sun-bleached parks of central Chester. We cared not for the risks, judging them to be inconsequentially small compared with necking a bottle of vodka or even driving without a seatbelt.

I suspect my surroundings, friendship group and excitement about the fast blossoming of adulthood were not dissimilar to those of Leah Betts, who grew up in the small town of Latchingdon in Essex. Thirty years ago this week, Leah, celebrating her 18th birthday, died after taking an ecstasy tablet, then drinking so much water that the subsequent intoxication led to hyponatremia and a fatal swelling of her brain. The ecstasy was believed to have impaired her body’s ability to regulate water balance.

The impact that Leah’s death had on teenagers in Britain at that time cannot be overstated. For my friendship circle, it was the biggest story that affected ‘our’ culture since the suicide of Kurt Cobain more than a year previously and marked a rare moment when youth activities........

© The Spectator