Mosca Burns, a 50-year-old mother, has experienced the tragedy that drug abuse brings and now she is warning other parents. Mosca's elder daughter Joana who was a university student passed away at 22. She had just experimented with ecstasy at the end of year celebrations at her college and it had proved fatal in her case. Just three months later, her sister and Mosca's younger daughter, 17-year-old Marcia killed herself. Mosca said that the younger girl was heartbroken and was going to see a counselor help make sense of her feelings about her sister's loss.

"Joana’s death affected Marcia very deeply, but she kept her true feelings well hidden," said the mother. "She was vulnerable and susceptible and Joana’s death was the trigger to what happened. I didn’t just lose one daughter to drugs, I lost two. It breaks my heart."

Joana was not a regular drug user and was exceptionally gifted in Mathematics. She had been on her way to finishing up her degree at Sheffield Hallam University. She died after taking a drug named MDMA, which is a crystallized form of ecstasy. She was taken to the hospital after she started showing signs of drug use gone wrong and she died there. At the time of death, her little sister Marcia had been in Stockholm with her dad.

Even though they lived far away, the two are said to be " very, very close" and would keep in touch and meet whenever they could. Mosca described them as two "sensitive and lovely girls".  Mosca said that she was taken aback by the situation but never imagined that she'd do something so unexpected. "I never thought for a moment she would do anything drastic. She was very good at hiding things. I know her dad would not have left her had he known how serious things were with Marcia. They had reached out to a therapist and had made an appointment for Marcia, but she took her life 48 hours before." 

Soon after the funeral, she went missing one day at school, she said."She went missing halfway through the school day. She did not turn up to her next lesson." She was later found dead in the nearby forest. " When you have an accidental death like Joana’s there’s a domino effect. Sadly it was Marcia who couldn’t stand up to losing her sister. Joana’s death was a terrible shock and I’d forgotten things but, seeing Marcia there, lots of it came flooding back," Mosca said. She has two other daughters - Cecilia, 26, and Daisy, nine. "For a student, I’m sure the price is very attractive. I just don’t know how we are going to fight it,"  she said. The MDMA that killed Joana was just for £7.

Two students were sentenced at Sheffield Crown Court on Friday for offenses relating to the night Joana died. Katherine Lavin, 21 and Computer science student Benjamin Williams, 25 appeared before the court after admitting to peddling the drug as well as marijuana possession. "I don’t care what happens to him," she said commenting on the hearing. "Whatever happens it will not bring my girls back."