‘They just wanted to have a good time’: friends of teen overdose victim speak out

Two teens who say they were with a young girl when she died of a drug overdose on Friday night are now speaking out about their friend.

The 16-year-old, who is from New Westminster but has not been identified, died after taking what she thought was MDMA – it turned out to be something else.

“She was really nice and she was witty and funny and she was probably the most perfect person you’ve ever met,” said the close friend, who Global News has agreed not to identify because she is a minor.

She says she did not take any pills, but another girl took the same type of pill as the victim and was rushed to hospital, but survived.

“They just wanted to have a good time and she said she’s done it before and the thing is, with drugs, it’s just never the same twice,” said the close friend.

“And now she’s dead.”

Counsellors are available at the victim’s school, POWER Alternate Secondary School, Monday. The school consists of only 66 students for select 16 to 18 year olds.

The girls had purchased the drug in pill form from the same street-level drug dealer, prompting the New Westminster police to put out a warning.

“This raises a number of different concerns for us, the first being that there’s a lethal drug circulating… and we don’t know what that drug is,” Sgt. Jeff Scott of New Westminster police said. “Buyers are being told that it’s one thing, when clearly it’s a mixture of other things.”

At this time, police say they do not know exactly what was in the drug, but toxicology results are expected this week.

“Our hearts go out to those families right now,” said Pat Duncan, superintendent of the New Westminster School District. “This is a terrible, terrible situation.”

— With files from Jon Azpiri