'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.