TEARS AND DRUG WARNINGS AT FUNERAL FOR FRIEND

The mother of 16-year-old Khanh Vo - who died of a suspected ecstasy
overdose - collapsed on the floor at his funeral yesterday.

"He was a good boy," Chien Vo said, sobbing. "Every day I wake and
think I should be telling him to go to school. This morning I think
I should tell him to take his umbrella."

Lapsing into her native Vietnamese language, she blamed herself for
her son's death.

"You were a good mama," a grief counsellor repeatedly told her.
"What happened was a terrible accident."

Khanh left the family home Saturday night to go to a city-licensed
rave, an all-night dance called Spooky-6, at the PNE.

His family received a phone call from Burnaby Hospital at 7:05 a.m.
Sunday to say he was in hospital with a suspected drug overdose. By
the time they got there, he was dead.

A 24-year-old woman, whose identity has not been released, also died
after taking drugs at the rave. Tests to determine what the victims
took will take several weeks to complete.

Many of the 4,500 teens at the rave took drugs, according to Khanh's
friends, who packed Glenhaven Funeral Home on East Hastings.

Ecstasy, X or E, is methylenedioxymethamphetamine or MDMA, a diet
drug that gives a feeling of well-being and emotional sensitivity in
controlled doses. In larger doses it can cause fatal heart attacks
or brain hemorrhages.

Friends say Khanh took one pill. It didn't seem to work and he took
up to four more.

Some were angry about drug use. "It's not a case that they just got
some bad drugs. E's just bad," said Ha Vu, 17.

While some of Khanh's friends were defending the rave scene, Vu and
Van Nguyen, 16, condemned the drug-dance culture.

"They go to these dances and take drugs and think they are being
bad-ass gangsters and they are so cool," said Nguyen.

"They don't realize they are risking their lives and it's their
friends and family who pay."