My beautiful boy, 13, was killed by super-strength ‘Donkey Kong’ MDMA he bought on Snapchat – it could be YOUR kid next
SCHOOLBOY Carson Price licked the remnants of a chocolate doughnut from his lips then bounded out the front door, telling his mum: "Love you, see you later!"
The excited 13-year-old was heading out to see pals - but just hours later, he was lying dead in hospital after taking a super-strength 'Donkey Kong' MDMA pill he'd bought on Snapchat.
For Carson's distraught mum Tatum, it was a tragedy she had never even imagined might happen to her "sensible" brown-haired boy, who achieved top grades and was never late home.
Yet the teen is among a soaring number of children taking drugs across the UK, where they can buy deadly substances almost as easily as buying a pizza, a damning new report reveals.
Youngsters have been pulled into drugs supply on an "alarming scale", according to Dame Carol Black's major review, which found a "considerable increase in children using drugs".
'It can happen to any child'
And with drug deaths in England and Wales at an all-time high, Tatum warns that millions of kids are at risk of dying like her son - regardless of their background or academic status.
"I stereotype people - everyone is guilty of that. But I have learned no matter how much you educate your child, it can happen," the personal trainer, from Hengoed, Wales, tells Sun Online.
"Carson knew what was right and wrong, he was so sensible.
"I think because he was so quiet, he tried to fit in and be 'one of the boys'."
Snapchat 'a shop window for drugs'
The review, ordered by the Home Office, also found social media has played a "facilitating role" in the shocking number of youngsters being drawn into the UK's £9.4billion-a-year drugs market.
And Tatum adds: "Dealers are advertising on Snapchat like a shop window. Every now and again I used to check Carson’s phone - more for bullying - but Snapchat disappears.
"There’s no trace of anything."
The popular messaging app - which considers itself a private communications platform rather than a social network - has community guidelines prohibiting the sale or purchase of drugs.
A spokesperson told Sun Online it was "deeply committed" to users' safety - yet Tatum claims to know at least nine other parents whose kids have bought drugs via the app like her son.
Carson is thought to have purchased the pill for as little as £2 using his pocket money.
He cycled from home to meet the dealer, Tatum says, but was unaware the tablet he had easily bought was a "bad drug" with such "extreme potency" it would kill him.
Modelled on the face of 'Donkey Kong' - a gorilla character from a children's video game franchise - the tablet's exterior gave away little of the lethal substances hidden inside it.
'You don't think it when they're 13'
"Drugs are being made more appealing to kids, and that’s the scary thing," says Tatum, adding that taking cheap ecstasy pills, often mixed with other substances such as amphetamine, cocaine, caffeine or meth, is "like Russian Roulette".
“If Carson was 18 and going clubbing, you’d think, 'OK, be careful of the drug scene.
"But you’re never thinking it when they’re 13."
Music-mad Carson was raced to hospital on April 12 last year, with his body temperature soaring to 42 degrees, after he was seen stumbling around then collapsing at a local park.
Unimaginable pain
Tatum, 40, was at home with younger son Coby and the boys' dad Brian - from whom she is separated - when police knocked on the door and broke the horrifying news at 8pm.
"Brian answered the door, I was in the kitchen pottering," she recalls. "They said, 'Are you Carson Price’s dad?' I heard him say, 'What’s he done?!', thinking it was something ridiculous."
To the parents' horror, the officers asked to see photos of Carson, telling them he had been hospitalised from a suspected drug overdose, and it "wasn't looking good".
"At that point you don’t want to believe it. I remember I couldn’t catch my breath," adds the mum.
"We did ask for an update on the way to hospital, which we didn’t get."
After arriving at Cardiff's University Hospital of Wales, Tatum saw someone standing in A&E clutching Carson's rucksack - and immediately knew her beautiful boy had died.
She felt numb as an officer confirmed the heartbreaking news.
'I touched his eyelashes and brows'
While Tatum couldn't bring herself to view her son's body in hospital, she later visited him at the chapel of rest, where she stroked his "amazing", long eyelashes.
"All the girls used to say to him, 'Look at your eyelashes,'" she recalls.
"I touched them - and his eyebrows. Carson was so particular over his hair. My mother and I cut a chunk of it - he’d probably be mortified we took it!"
'It's almost as easy as getting your pizza'
DAME Carol Black presented the findings of her drugs report, ordered by the Home Office, at the UK Drugs Summit in Glasgow last week.
She described how the UK has an "abundant supply" of drugs "coming into our countries from around the world, more than ever before".
"It's purer, it's more available, you can buy whichever drug you want almost anywhere," she said.
"It wouldn't be too far to go to say it's almost for some drugs as easy as getting your pizza."
She added: "At the same time we have seen a reduction in very good treatment and recovery, and that again all adds up to leave us as you will see in this report with the perfect storm.
"I believe this perfect storm will not go away unless Government takes action."
Dame Carol's review found Government measures have had “limited success” in stemming the soaring supply of drugs.
She blamed this on “budgetary constraints” faced by the National Crime Agency (NCA), the Border Force and police forces.
However, she said it is unclear if sufficient financial backing of the organisations would make a difference due to the "flexibility and resilience of drug markets".
Last year, an estimated 3million people took some form of illegal drug - with 300,000 using the most dangerous such as heroin and crack cocaine.
Alarmingly, drug use among kids aged 11 to 15 has risen by more than 40 per cent since 2014.
"However, there has been a sustained and significant decrease in the number of young people receiving specialist interventions for their drug use," according to the review.
'We told Coby his brother had gone to sleep'
A particularly painful moment for Tatum and Brian was having to explain to Coby that the big brother he looked up to and adored would never return home.
"They were really close," says Tatum.
“When we came home, we told Coby that Carson had just gone to sleep."
They later told the youngster that Carson had passed away, without mentioning the cause.
But the mum adds: "He obviously knows how to Google.
"I remember checking his phone and seeing he had Googled 'Donkey Kong'."
On May 7, 2019, Carson was laid to rest in a T-shirt that Tatum had bought him as a surprise on the day he died, but which she never got the chance to give him.
"It's what he’s gone to sleep in," she tells us.
County lines horror
According to Dame Carol's review, the UK's illicit drugs market has "never caused greater harm to society than now", costing around £19billion a year - more than double the market's value.
It is also costing thousands their lives, killing twice as many people as car crashes. Drug deaths in 2018 were the highest on record - at 2,917 - partly fuelled by 'woke coke' users.
The UK has also seen a surge in 'county lines' drug trafficking - where gangs and distribution networks from cities move into smaller towns and use violence to overtake local dealers.
They use children or vulnerable people to sell their product, sometimes 'plugged' inside their bums.
'If they get your kid, there's nothing you can do'
"It doesn't matter how good a parent you are... if they get hold of your kid there's nothing you can do about it," one grieving mum, Karla, from Oxfordshire, told Sun Online last year.
Karla's 16-year-old son Jacob was found dead on his bed in 2018 - three years after he was lured in by 'county lines' barons and made to ferry around Class A drugs in a bag.
Karla, 44, believes he took his own life while suffering "absolute turmoil" over his years of exploitation, saying: "I definitely blame county lines - 100 per cent".
She added: "He got himself in so deep he couldn't get out.
"People used to say to me, 'Oh if it was my son I'd keep him in'.
"I tried everything - I locked the doors, I got a deadlock, I chased him down the street, I went round to dangerous people's houses. I felt totally and utterly helpless."
The review found there is a strong link between young people being drawn into county lines and increases in child poverty, the numbers of children in care and school exclusions.
And one mum told last May how her 14-year-old son had been expelled from school and sent to a pupil referral unit (PRU) after being groomed to be a white, 'clean-cut' drug runner.
'My usually responsible son took MDMA at rave'
While some children are trapped in a vicious cycle of 'county lines', others pay the ultimate price for their uninformed - and sometimes, reluctant - decision to take drugs with pals.
"Bright and funny" teen Dan Spargo-Mabbs, 16, died after taking MDMA at his first ever illegal rave, having 'held off' taking the drug for hours as his friends did it.
Like Carson, Dan's body temperature soared to 42 degrees - four degrees over 'fever' level - after he unknowingly bought a lethal amount of ecstasy from a street dealer.
"It shot up really high - your body just can’t cope with that," says Dan's mum, Fiona, 53, who had thought her "usually responsible" son was at a party, not the London rave.
Doctors forced to slice open legs
Dan, from Croydon, was placed on life support, as his organs shut down and his legs became so swollen he needed surgery to cut them open to relieve the pressure.
Despite medics' best efforts to save him, he died days later, in January 2014.
"The amount of MDMA in his blood was 12 times stronger than had caused mortality in the past," Fiona, who also has an older son Jacob, 25, with husband Tim, 56, tells us.
During his short life, Dan had been voted prom king, carried out youth work for his church, signed up to be a bone marrow donor, and ran free errands for elderly locals.
He also had a "lovely" long-term girlfriend and dreamed of being an English teacher.
"If someone like Dan can get caught up in something like that, anybody can," Fiona tells us.
"Even young people can tend to think it’s just the bad kids."
'A stark picture of devastation'
POLICE and crime minister Kit Malthouse, who chaired the drug summit in Glasgow, has described Dame Carol's findings as "troubling".
He also said they "paint a stark picture of how illegal drugs are devastating lives and communities, and fuelling serious violence".
"We are already taking tough action to combat county lines and violent crime and to disrupt and prosecute the organised gangs that bring so much misery," said Mr Malthouse.
"But clearly we all need to do more. Following this valuable review and summit we will take further action at pace, bringing together partners from across Government and beyond to address the challenges head on, based on the very best evidence and expertise."
Health minister Jo Churchill said it was important a "holistic approach" is taken towards drug addiction treatment, which also offers support for the mental health of people suffering with addiction.
"Dame Carol's review is an essential step towards tackling drug addiction and we will build on her work to ensure victims of the illegal drug industry can access the right services," she said.
Rob Jones, the NCA's threat leadership director, described illegal drugs as a "corrosive threat".
"Protecting the public is our priority and we work relentlessly to tackle the whole drug supply chain," he said.
'Parents can't rely on their kids telling them'
Since Dan's death, Fiona and Tim have set up , to raise awareness of the risks of substance misuse and experimentation in his name.
They say more focus needs to be placed on "prevention" - educating kids and their parents, and providing better resources for teachers - otherwise Britain will remain in "crisis mode".
"Young people need the tools to be able to navigate the risks safely. We need to build a generation of young people who are making choices that are keeping them safe," says Fiona.
She adds: "As a parent, you don’t know what you don’t know. You can’t rely on your teenagers necessarily telling you. I knew probably as much as the average parent - and it’s just not enough."
It's a warning echoed by Tatum - who says that, despite telling her son even over-the-counter medicines can have serious effects, like anaphylactic shock, he still secretly bought the MDMA.
"There’s not enough information and support out there," she says.
"Parents can be ignorant - you’re not aware of what’s happening.”
A teenager and two men were arrested last year in connection with Carson's death and released under investigation. The youngster's inquest is due to take place next month.
'I'm living every day like he's in school'
In the meantime, grief-stricken Tatum is living each day "like Carson's in school".
"I think you have to otherwise you’ll just crack," she says.
The former bodybuilder recently got a tattoo in tribute to her "handsome angel", featuring the lyrics to Louis Tomlinson's song Two Of Us: "I'll be living one life for the two of us."
And while she worries that younger son Coby could be exposed to MDMA in the future, she believes he's more likely to come to harm through a punch-up related to drugs.
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"I’m guessing it’ll make him really angry if there are people around him with it," says Tatum. “I have visions of someone offering him something, not knowing who he is, and him losing it."
Terrifyingly, unless the situation in the UK changes, this could happen sooner rather than later.
"Before, I would have never taken a notice of a drug death because I thought it had no relevance to me," adds the mum. "But now there’s another one, and another one, and another one."
Dealers peddling Class A drugs on Snapchat
SNAPCHAT says it prohibits people from using the platform for any illegal activities - including the sale or purchase of drugs.
However, an investigation in January found heartless dealers are using the app to peddle Class A drugs and arrange drop offs in the UK.
A BBC Inside Out report claimed Snapchat accounts advertising videos of cocaine, MDMA, ketamine and cannabis - which vanished after being read - had been uncovered.
A Snapchat spokesperson told Sun Online this week: "At Snap, we have always put a great deal of thought into how to enable young people to engage creatively, safely and positively when online.
"This has informed the development of Snapchat from the very beginning.
"We are deeply committed to the safety of our community and our terms of service and our community guidelines prohibit anyone from using Snapchat to buy or sell drugs.
"We encourage anyone who sees illegal content to report it in app so our dedicated Trust and Safety team can take action."
