Mum calls for cocaine awareness campaign after son takes life after taking it

A mum who's son took his own life after taking cocaine on a night out is speaking out about the dangers of drugs and drinks mixing.

Clare Sturman from Narberth in Pembrokeshire is calling for more education and research around the risks of taking cocaine with alcohol and its links with suicide.

Her son, Sam Price, aged 19, died just last September after a night out with friends.

She believes if he hadn’t taken cocaine, he would still be here today.

She said: "When a suicide happens, it's like a bomb going off. Everything is changed and altered and no one is left unscathed.

"I genuinely think if Sam had not been using cocaine he would still be here today, without a shadow of a doubt because he was actively making plans and had so much to live for. If it can happen to him, it can literally happen to anybody."

"That was it, my gorgeous boy with his shining blue eyes and huge heart had literally just gone".

Since Sam's death, Clare has set up a charity called "The Sammy-Sized Gap" and the "Yaki Da Boi" project to help raise funds for more awareness around the risks of taking cocaine.

She has also joined parents across Wales and the UK who have also lost sons to suicide in a group called, the Co-Alc Alliance.

They want to see more research into the combination of cocaine and alcohol and its links with suicide.

Also in the group is Mandy Naylor, whose son Shaun had cocaine and alcohol in his system when he died from suicide in October 2021.

She is a community public health nurse and explains what happens when cocaine and alcohol are mixed in the body.

Mandy said, "When cocaine and alcohol are mixed, they metabolise in the liver and they create a unique psychoactive substance called cocaethylene. Cocaethylene prolongs effects and impacts and prevents the uptake of dopamine and serotonin which are the feel-good hormones in the brain, which leads the person in the comedown to have an intense crash.

"Within that intense crash, we now know there is a transient psychosis and part of that transient psychosis there are artificial disaster thoughts and they lead people to a compulsion to complete the act of suicide."

She continues "So people who've been using cocaine for years and don't believe they are at risk of this, they actually are, it could literally happen to anybody who uses alcohol and cocaine together."

Nicola Abraham's son Jacob had cocaine and alcohol in his system when he died from suicide in 2015.

Since his death, she has been running the Jacob Abraham Foundation and she feels the situation is getting worse.

"We're seeing more and more families, more and more people dying from suicide with alcohol and cocaine at toxicology. We're seeing more and more people coming to service having taking cocaine and alcohol and having serious thoughts of suicide the next day. So the situation has got a lot worse and the frustration is it could have been preventable if they'd been more awareness."

Nicola, Clare and Mandy would like to see a public health campaign raising awareness of the dangers.

Clare added, "We know there are hundreds of people who will mix cocaine and alcohol at any given weekend and be ok. But we now also know there are hundreds who are not ok.

"I never want another family to go through what we have gone through"

Her message to parents and young people is to talk about the risks.

She said "Never ever leave a friend who isn't themselves after taking cocaine and alcohol, because we know when the comedown moves on, then they can be ok. But we don't want to lose another person in that comedown."

The Welsh Government says it is committed to preventing and reducing suicides with people who use substances as a priority group.

A Welsh Government spokesperson said, “We’ve recently consulted on our draft Suicide and Self-Harm Prevention Strategy, which sets out our commitment to deliver a reduction in the number and rates of suicide that have endured over recent years. We aim to publish our new strategy later this year.”

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