Derry’s Policing and Community Safety Partnership are to hold a public meeting tonight to discuss the impact of drug use/abuse on families and communities.
The meeting will be held at St Columb’s Park House in the Waterside at 730pm.
At tonights meeting, a number of mothers who have suffered bereavement due to drug related deaths will tell their personal stories.
Teresa Burke, whose 22-year-old son Kealan died a year after taking the heroin substitute will speak at tonights meeting.
Ms Burke believes graphic images and a hard hitting video documenting her son’s struggle during the final few months of his life will act as a powerful deterrent.
Kealan Burke died after years of drug abuse, his last year was spent receiving round the clock care in a nursing home and he died a week after turning 22 in February 2009.
His mother Teresa will lay bare the grim reality of drug abuse when she addresses tonights public meeting.
Karen Vandersypen, from Letterkenny whos son Jimmy died after smoking synthetic cannabis last year, will also address tonights meeting.
Teresa Burke says after her son appeared in court on possession charges, she thought he had finished with drugs.
On today’s Shaun Doherty Show, she said she was tragically mistaken…………
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