Really, if you’ve ever been to a music festival or ever taken drugs – this could have been you.
19-year-old Rebecca Hannibal did what so many girls her age have done before her. She picked up some pills on the way to a music festival for herself and her best friend.
Tragically, for both girls, Rebecca’s best friend, Georgina Bartter, died after taking them. And now Rebecca is being charged with supplying the prohibited drug.
Following Georgina’s tragic death last year’s Harbourlife music festival, it’s been revealed that NSW Police have charged her best friend with supplying the fatal ecstasy pills.
It’s an unspeakably sad outcome for a young girl who is already living through the tremendous loss of her friend.
It is alleged that Rebecca Hannibal purchased a number of “purple speaker” pills from alleged drug dealer Matthew Forti. She then passed them onto Bartter who had a rare allergic reaction to the pills causing severe organ failure resulting in her death.
Rebecca will face charges in court on March 18th.
It’s an outcome that has many questioning the effectiveness of our drug laws and whether or not it’s fair to charge Hannibal with supplying the drug.
“We’re living in a time when even some of the most powerful people who run countries are saying that our criminal system around drug use and reform laws is failing”, says Matt Noffs, co-founder of Street University, an organisation that directly deals with youth drug use.
“And it’s sad to think that young people like this girl would face consequences that will affect the rest of her life because of a damaging decision she made at a young age.”
Read more:Could Georgina Bartter’s death have been avoided?
It’s estimated around 3 million Australians are regular users of recreational drugs, according to a report by illicit drug trade researcher Dr John Jiggens.
This static is hardly shocking, either. Ask any of your own friends, and I’m sure they or someone they know is a regular user. From teenagers at a music festival to your 45-year-old executive who works late, the amount of recreational drug use in Australia is no secret and it drives home that Rebecca Hannibal could be any one of those 3 million.
The action of Hannibal picking up the drugs for herself and her friends is simply part of the process, and the charges against her are likely to do nothing to deter the wider public.
“They’re going to see right through that (charge),” says Julie Dubuc, one of the managers at Street University.
“What’s the purpose of that… it’s still not dealing with the actual issues. There’s a lot of drug use out there and people are still going to take the drugs. It would be more effective for them to come in from a treatment perspective, support them and educate them.”
Read more:Her daughter died from an ecstasy overdose. So she’s calling for the drug to be legalised.
Matt Noffs, who is vocal in his calls for a new approach to drug laws, says authorities don’t understand the pattern of youth drug use and so rather than deter young people we’re punishing the vulnerable as well as the guilty.
“We need to start looking at alternatives because how we look at dealing with it is no longer clear cut. We need to understand how it works, how are young people accessing drugs. The old way is outdated and now this girl will have to suffer because of societies outdated views.”
Noffs says youth drug patterns more closely resemble party planning rather than setting themselves up as drug dealers.
“We see people in our programmes who are unwittingly placing themselves at tremendous risk of very harsh sentences by doing nothing more than helping their friends get cheaper access to drugs.”
He also says it’s a cop out to say young people are stupid and should know better.
“Do you really think we should condemn someone to a life in prison for making a mistake like this so early in life? What if it were your child?”
What do you think, will charging Rebecca Hannibal do anything to prevent further deaths from occurring or do we need a new approach to drug laws in Australia?
Top Comments
Basically, it is the user who pushes drugs onto their friends. If it wasn't for other users offering a line or a pill to a mate to 'try' then perhaps less people would use drugs. The big bad drug dealer is the one that everyone says we should go after but in actuality it's our mates who 'supply' drugs to the user. I don't believe that Georgina was a naive first time user and she is responsible for taking the drug herself. But perhaps people like her friend need to be dealt with by the law as we have for a long time preached harm minimisation for these people & yet it has not had any major impact. There are consequences for our actions. Georgina paid the ultimate consequence & now her friend has to face up to hers. It does not make her a bad person & if she gets the right barrister she will probably walk away from court with a section 10 bond without conviction.
Pills should be legal. They have been used successfully in therapy for social anxiety and also PTSD. I'm sure there are other benefits too. If they were legal and made from a reputable source, this girl might still be alive today. One life has already been destroyed by this, her friend should not be charged with supplying a drug. She could have known the dealer and arranged the purchase, and got her friend to pick up the drugs instead.
How many people die each week from cigarettes of alcohol? I bet cigarettes and alcohol kill more people in a month that illegal drugs do in an entire year.
Using that argument - how many more deaths per year do you think will result if more junk is legalised?
I'm saying the junk that is illegal causes less death than the junk that is legal. If more junk was legal, people could replace booze with pills or pot, and there would be less deaths per year.
Australia has a drinking problem which people are reluctant to talk about.