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Parents release shock drug pictures

The parents of 32-year-old ex-student Jeremy Stopley told last night how they hoped a harrowing video of his luxurious life would warn teenagers about the dangers of anti-drugs campaigns.

In the video, Jeremy is seen eating cordon bleu food and drinking mineral water in his luxury flat in Kensington. However, it was a different story just 10 years earlier when Jeremy was poorly-disciplined, over-sociable and wouldn't get up until 10am, his parents told The Rockall Times.

"Sometimes, his friends have since told us, he would just stay up and chat with his friends, discussing a variety of topics and listening to other people's perspectives on life," Mrs Stopley told us. "His music tastes became more varied and he started talking about different religions and how money wasn't the most important thing in life."

That carefree existence was destroyed however when he experimented with counselling work at university. Introduced to the dangers of drugs by a self-absorbed ex-heroin addict, Jeremy was quickly taken in. His friends noticed an immediate change in him. "He just wasn't the same after he met up with that crowd," a friend who wished to remain anonymous told us. "Before he would just come round and have a smoke and play the guitar, but suddenly he started talking about gateway drugs and how we would all end up dead."

Soon, Jeremy had lost all his old friends and taken up with a group of extreme soberists. Within weeks, he had stopped socialising, dumped his girlfriend and spent all his time debating economics and arguing over how to reinforce the system.

It was a hard time for his parents. "We would see him only occasionally during the holidays. He would always be off, chasing money," his mum confided. "He had meant to go to India but ended up getting a temp job with a group of lawyers instead. When he was with us, you could see that he wasn't really listening to what we were saying. It was all status or money or the right suits to wear. Where did our lovely son who thought other people were more important than himself go?"

To push home the point, Mr and Mrs Stopley have released a series of graphic pictures showing Jeremy laughing with his friends while stoned, dancing ecstatically in a nightclub and deep in conversation with a university professor having taken LSD. They say they want to "make people think" about drugs — and to challenge stereotypes about drug abusers.

"We just hope that kids will see these photos and realise the real dangers that anti-drugs campaigns can have. They need to be educated or we will see more wasted lives like our Jeremy's."

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