I'm still terrified of drugs, thanks to that photo of Leah Betts

It's been almost 29 years since her parents released the image of her in hospital

I had just turned 9 (not 19, thanks Keeks for pointing out my typo) when 18-year-old Leah Betts died after taking one ecstasy pill on her birthday in 1995.

This was in the pre-social media era, when you had to look up the cinema times in the newspaper and meet your friends at the cashpoint before your day of shopping. Yet, without it, her death was one of the most powerful anti-drugs campaigns.

The decision by Leah’s parents to release the image of her in a coma, is one that couldn’t have been taken lightly, but, I, for one, am so glad that they did.

I was a late bloomer. While my peers were sneaking into pubs and clubs, me and my friends were still in our polyester Umbro shorts.

I was the first in our group to lost my virginity at 18/19 (which is ironic considering my dating life now) and it was the age Leah lost her life, that mine really started to bloom.

We used to go to a club in Croydon called The Black Sheep. It was basically where anyone who didn’t conform to Tiger Tiger went. Thursdays were metal night where you’d most often find us ordering snake bites (not me) and sambucas (me).

Despite all that mid-week drinking, the thought of even taking a pill terrified me and to this day still does. Just the suggestion of it would immediately bring the image of Leah to mind and almost, more importantly than my own life, the thought of disappointing my parents.

Now, I don’t know what Jan and Mick did, but even at 37 I’m scared to disappoint them. Call it terrific parenting, call it Jan’s tough love, but the idea of me being in Leah’s place, was enough to put me off drugs entirely.

I honestly thought everyone my age would feel the same. One of the reasons that Leah’s death was so shocking was because she was from a normal middle class family. I had always associated drugs with poverty and homelessness… until I started working in the media.

When I got my job at Cosmopolitan, I soon realised how different it was from the rest of the industry. Not only was everyone else not as friendly, welcoming or relatable, but they were rich, really rich. The kind of rich where the idea of living in zone 6 was incomprehensible.

So, you can imagine my genuine shock, when I first heard these people openly talk about their cocaine fuelled evenings. I was from Croydon not Wiltshire, but their conversations and their candour was mind boggling to me.

This kind of drug use is what I associated with ‘crack dens’, not people who ask if you ski.

I thought I had escaped the drug years in my teens, but here I was back in them in my twenties. Yes, I’d done weed (on four equally tragic and hilarious occasions), but never anything ‘hard’.

However, despite their availability and my addictive personality, I could never get that image of Leah out my head. Between her and the thought of eternal judgement from Jan and Mick, no line of coke could ever tempt me.

Even though I’d long forgotten her name - I had to google ‘ecstasy photo coma’ to find it - Leah and that decision by her parents made a huge impact on my life and I’m sure so many others.