A MOTHER who lost her 15-year-old daughter after she took Ecstasy urged MPs to review drug laws yesterday.

Martha Fernbeck, a student at The Cherwell School, collapsed and died at South Oxford’s Hinksey Park after taking half a gram of Ecstasy powder on July 20 last year.

Her mother Anne-Marie Cockburn has been calling for drugs to be regulated by doctors and pharmacists since Martha’s inquest earlier this year.

Yesterday, the 43-year-old spoke to MPs at Portcullis House, Westminster, before a debate addressing the country’s drug laws.

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It took place on what would have been Martha’s 17th birthday.

Miss Cockburn, from Summertown, said: “I thought it was fabulous. It was a step in the right direction.

“If we can prevent another parent having to celebrate their child’s birthday after they died, I will do what I can.

“I will never get what I want which is for it not to have happened.”

Oxford Mail:

Mother Anne-Marie Cockburn

MPs debated a petition set up by Brighton Pavilion Green Party MP Caroline Lucas after it received almost 135,000 signatures in two months.

Any petition receiving support from more than 100,000 people has to be debated by backbench MPs in the House of Commons.

The MP demanded an impact assessment of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.

In June, Coroner Darren Salter recorded a verdict of accidental death at the inquest into Martha’s death.

Miss Cockburn has been campaigning to legalise drugs since then and released a book about losing her daughter.

She said: “I believe that this should be dealt with medically within the health sector.

“We need to approach it from an empathetic and more supportive perspective instead of putting them into the criminal justice system.”

 

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