Cocaine using young Brits are being killed by heart attacks in record numbers – and just one binge can be deadly
JEANNETTE Allen was just 39 when she was found dead of a heart attack on her sofa after snorting cocaine during a night out with friends.
She was a support worker at a primary school in Rochdale and left behind her devastated partner of 19 years, Robert Christian, who told an inquest she was the “woman of his dreams”.
Jeannette had been celebrating a pal’s 40th birthday in November 2017, with tests showing the cocaine she mixed with alcohol had triggered underlying heart problems.
But her story is far from unique – heart attack is the leading cause of death among people who abuse coke.
But such is the stigma around drug deaths that the families of people who lose their life to them are unwilling to speak out
One report showed that heart attacks account for 25 per cent of deaths among people aged 18 - 45 who abuse cocaine or crack cocaine.
And the number of people dying from cocaine use has gone up for the sixth year in a row, rising from 112 in 2011 to 432 in 2017.
This comes as worrying numbers of people take the drug – use has doubled in Britain over the last five years and deaths linked to it have risen threefold since 2011 as The Sun’s End Of The Line campaign highlights.
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Jeannette was described as a “bit of a party girl” at one point in her life, but had stopped going out as much in the years before she died.
Still, one evening of taking cocaine was all it took to trigger the heart attack which killed her.
Her partner Robert told the inquest he wasn’t aware she was taking cocaine and although she had diabetes, she had got it more or less under control in the last few years.
'I knew she was gone'
“The last time I saw and spoke to her was around 3am. She wanted to go to town and I didn’t so I left town on my own and headed home,” he said.
“I woke up at about 12.50pm on the Sunday and I found her on the couch. I called the ambulance and the paramedics came but I knew that she was gone.
“I miss her like crazy. She had so much that she was going to do.”
While heart attacks in young people like Jeannette are extremely rare, taking coke raises the risk because it elevates blood pressure.
Users have increased blood flow because the heart is beating faster, but it has nowhere to go because vessels are simultaneously constricted.
This means the heart is put under a lot of pressure, raising the risk of heart attack, cardiac arrest, stroke or an aortic dissection - where the aorta, the largest artery leading out of the heart, simply shreds under the pressure.
End Of The Line
Cocaine use is reaching epidemic levels in Britain, with the UK branded the ‘Coke capital’ of Europe.
Use has doubled in the last five years, and with young people the numbers are even worse.
A staggering one in five 16-to-24-year-olds have taken cocaine in the last year.
That’s why The Sun has launched its End Of The Line campaign, calling for more awareness around the drug.
Cocaine use can cause mental health problems such as anxiety and paranoia, while doctors have linked the rise in cheap, potent coke to an increase in suicide rates.
People from all walks of life, from builders and labourers to celebrities like Jeremy McConnell – who is backing our campaign – have fallen foul of its lure.
It’s an issue that is sweeping the UK and, unless its tackled now, means a mental health crisis is imminent.
At Jeannette’s inquest, Dr Sami Titi explained that her diabetes did have an impact but she also had a 90 per cent narrowing of her arteries, which put a strain on her heart.
He added: “She had an acute heart attack. As she had been drinking and taking cocaine that also would have put pressure on her heart.
“The cocaine sped the process of the heart attack up. It is a risk of taking cocaine that you can have a sudden heart attack.”
A recent crime survey showed cocaine use is at its highest in the UK for a decade – the reason the country was recently named the cocaine capital of Europe.
While its price meant it used to be the drug of choice for the wealthy and upper-class, cheap, potent cocaine has been flooding the streets and means it’s now as popular with labourers and taxi drivers as members of the A-list.
And you don’t have to be bingeing on the stuff for years for it to be fatal.
Dead after one line
Father-of-two George Seeby, 25, died in his sleep in October 2018 after he snorted a line of cocaine off a house key during a night out in Altrincham, Manchester, with friends.
George woke up the morning after and asked his girlfriend to shut their bedroom door so he could have a lie in whilst she was tending to their baby.
But just an hour later she returned to the bedroom to find George dead.
Tests showed a toxic level of cocaine he had taken “recreationally” the previous evening had caused him to have either a fatal heart attack or seizure.
He had less than a usual fatal level in his system, but that can vary depending on a person's tolerance to the drug.
His partner, who had been dating George for almost three years, told an inquest that the couple had gone out drinking in a few pubs around the area, before he took cocaine.
“It wasn’t the first time he had it. A few other people were taking it as well. He took it off a key. He didn’t say he wasn’t feeling unwell,” she said.
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"When we got back he ushered me upstairs as I was a little bit drunk and he said goodbye to his mum then came up to bed.
“He woke up in the morning and he seemed fine, other than a bit of a hangover he was OK.
“The baby was next to me and she woke up so I took her out. He then shouted me back and asked me to shut the door as he wanted to go back to sleep.
"I then went on the phone for about an hour talking to my friend. When I came back in the room I knew something was wrong. I didn’t hear anything. I saw he was unresponsive."
More dying from coke than on the roads
This rising death toll from cocaine use is extremely worrying. Karen Tyrell, the executive director of the drugs charity Addaction, told the Guardian newspaper last year that the government should embark on a much more detailed investigation of why cocaine deaths were rising.
“The numbers [dying from drug misuse] are scandalous. They are two-and-a-half times higher than the numbers that die in road traffic accidents,” she said.
And like victims of road traffic accidents, the deaths can be tragic and random, with the lives of devoted mothers such as Tara Culley coming to a heartbreaking and untimely end.
The 28 year-old from Radcliffe in Bury had a fatal heart attack in August 2018 after drinking lager and snorting cocaine over a 15-hour period while her two children and her boyfriend's daughter were being looked after by their grandmother.
Tara was found unresponsive in bed later that evening by her partner of eight years, Alan Roe, and died at Royal Bolton Hospital in the early hours of the following morning.
Tests showed she had alcohol in her system, as well as traces of cocaine consistent with 'recreational' use.
Alan told the inquest into Tara’s death about that night and how cocaine played its part, and admitted she would drink excessively when she went out with friends - which wasn't much - and would sometimes take cocaine.
"She bought some cocaine in the evening, but I don’t know how much or where she got it from,” he explained.
“We left the pub around midnight and we stopped off to buy alcohol on the way home. We carried on drinking alcohol and she took cocaine at that point.”
MORE FROM END OF THE LINE
Alan wasn’t sure how much coke his partner had taken but a post mortem showed she died of acute cardiac failure, partly caused by cocaine use.
As toxicologist Julie Evans said at the inquest: “The alcohol level was low and I didn’t have evidence of a large overdose - it looked more like what you would see from recreational use.
“But cocaine is a stimulant and can cause cardiac problems, which can have a significant effect on your heart.”
Alongside this, cocaine can have a profound impact on mental health, with paranoia, depression and suicidal thoughts all side effects.
With so many dangers, both physical and mental, linked to the drug, it seems now really must be the End Of The Line.