Editorial: Holly’s story a devastating reminder of evils of drugs

Every now and then, there’s a story that stops you in your tracks; that causes you to leave your coffee to go cold as you turn the pages.

The tale of Holly Deane-Johns’ journey from privileged Mt Lawley schoolgirl to infamous international drug trafficker before her eventual redemption and return to Perth is one of those stories.

It’s a story that starts happily enough, as Deane-Johns told reporter Steve Butler in her first interview since her release after her decades-long incarceration.

“We had a great childhood, we had a great life,” she said. “We didn’t talk about drugs, we didn’t have anything to do with drugs, we weren’t criminals. We were the normal, typical Perth suburban family.”

But that serene suburban life was shattered by drugs.

She was just 16 when she tried heroin for the first time, given to her by her own mother who had taken up with an addict.

“They say you try it once and you’re hooked and it’s so true,” Deane-Johns said.

“That was the beginning of the end and there’s nothing to be proud of.”

It led to a full-blown addiction which built to a devastating crescendo when Deane-Johns was caught trying to post 10.4g of heroin to Australia from Thailand.

Her stories of life in a Bangkok jail are beyond belief.Maggots in the food, if there was food at all.

Crammed into a cell smaller than a two-car garage with 120 other women.

But the most harrowing part of Deane-Johns story comes when she recounts watching her best friend’s agonising death from AIDS.

If ever there was a story that illustrated the devastating toll drugs can take on a young person’s life, this is it.

Read it. Show it to your kids and ask them to read it too.

Now 51, having lost her youth to that Bangkok prison, Deane-Johns is working, living a quiet life away from drugs.

She hopes her story will help others.

We wish her all the best.

Responsibility for the editorial comment is taken by WAN Editor-in-Chief Anthony De Ceglie