Pubdate: Thu, 01 Nov 2001
Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC)
Copyright: 2001 The Vancouver Sun
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/vancouver/vancouversun/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477
Author: Chris Nuttall-Smith

'GOOD KID' MADE A MISTAKE

Khanh Vo Succumbed To 'The Pressure' To Take Ecstasy

Khanh Vo's memory lives in a shrine in his heart-sick family's east 
Vancouver living room, in a half-dozen photos flanked by a bowl of fruit 
and some congee made by his mother, with incense and Halloween candy and an 
orange-beaded bracelet he wore to the rave last weekend.

Khanh's sister Laura, 22, says she is being strong, that her family needs 
her that way.

She speaks of her 16-year-old brother in the present still, as if he did 
not die in a Burnaby hospital Sunday morning. She wants people to know her 
family is a good family, her brother is a good boy, her brother does not go 
to many raves. Her brother does not do drugs.

But on Saturday, Khanh went out against his parents' will.

He promised to be home early.

"There were 4,500 kids there and I bet you every single one dropped 
ecstasy," Laura says. "The pressure's so much."

The next day, around 5 a.m., Khanh was taken to Burnaby Hospital. The 
hospital called at 7:05 that morning. When Laura arrived, a doctor told her 
that her brother had overdosed on ecstasy. Just after 7 a.m., the doctor 
told her, he had died.

Khanh's friends later told Laura they had gone to the rave, called 
Spooky-6, and that Khanh had taken a hit of ecstasy. When nothing happened, 
he took more. All told, Laura says, Khanh took about four pills.

He was one of two people who died after the rave at the Pacific National 
Exhibition. A 24-year-old woman, whose name has not yet been released, also 
died. B.C. chief coroner Terry Smith warned the public Monday that the 
deaths might have been caused by a bad batch of ecstasy and that anyone who 
bought the drug recently should destroy it or turn it in to authorities.

=46ull toxicology reports on the two victims will not be completed for 
about two weeks, Smith said.

But as long as there are raves, Laura Vo says, kids -- good kids -- will 
overdose and die.

"Honestly, I want to make raves to be illegal in all of Canada," she says. 
"Make them illegal. I don't want to see another family whose kid passes 
away because of a stupid thing like this."

The photos show Khanh as a little boy in a striped red jersey, crowding 
over a Black Forest cake with eight candles. They show him a little older, 
with a bundle of balloons, and older still in a portrait with his shiny 
black hair parted down the middle.

In the largest picture, taken this year at school, his hair is short on the 
sides and spiky with bleach blond ends. He wears a black v-neck T-shirt and 
the same self-conscious smile that thousands of high-school boys get on 
picture day.

Khanh's family moved from Vietnam when he was six. His father and mother, 
Cuong and Chieu Vo, sent him to Charles Dickens elementary school. For 
eighth grade, he went to John Oliver. He attended there until last year, 
when he transferred to an alternative program, principal Ian McKay said 
Wednesday.

This year, he registered closer to home, at Sir Charles Tupper.

On Monday at lunch, the school announced over its public address system 
that a student had passed away on the weekend. On Tuesday morning, teachers 
read a typed message to their students, saying that Khanh Vo had died.

The teachers read a similar message at John Oliver, said McKay, the 
principal. "A lot of weeping kids on Monday," McKay said.

He said some 60 students plan to attend Khanh's funeral today. Counsellors 
from the school will also attend, McKay said.

In the Vos' living room, a soap opera plays quietly on the television, 
though no one watches. Someone has kicked over a glass of water on the 
carpet. Khanh's mother does not come out -- she cannot hear her son's name 
without weeping. Khanh's father walks in carrying a garbage bag. His eyes 
look downward at the carpet and he shuffles out of the room.

Khanh's seven-year-old brother keeps quiet, mostly. He looks just like his 
big brother. Khanh used to cut his hair. His mother can hardly look at the 
little boy, so much does he resemble his brother.

Laura Vo says Khanh loved coconut juice and mangos and guavas. He is a good 
boy, she says. He has good manners. They are a good family. She would have 
said that even before he passed away, she says.

Her mother still wants Khanh to return from school. His backpack waits by 
the door with his sneakers and a white ballcap branded with a swoosh.

His family is trying to be strong.
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MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens