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# Dede Goldsmith, Amend the RAVE Act | Drug War Stories
- URL: https://ghost.psymposia.com/dede-goldsmith-amend-the-rave-act-drug-war-stories/
- Published: 2016-11-01T15:53:11.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T06:31:25.000Z
- Description: Dede Goldsmith shares the emotional story of her daughter, Shelley, who died of heat stroke at an EDM concert after taking MDMA.
- Author: Mike Elliott
- Tags: Videos, #youtube, #youtube-transcript

Dede Goldsmith shares the emotional story of her daughter, Shelley, who died of heat stroke at an EDM concert after taking MDMA.

Drug War Stories, Catharsis on the Mall 2015

Filmed by Kenny Reff, Evan Roberts, Bryce Montgomery  
Edited by J Warner

[http://amendtheraveact.org](http://amendtheraveact.org/?ref=ghost.psymposia.com)  
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[http://psymposia.com](https://ghost.psymposia.com/)

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## Transcript

*This transcript was generated automatically from YouTube's captions, then cleaned up by removing filler words, repeated words and background sounds. It may still contain errors.*

[\[00:01\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvlOcRcANpg&t=1s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) My daughter Shelly was she died a at a club here in DC but the longer story is that she was a just a wonderful person just added so much to the life of my husband and myself she was our only child U my husband and I have been married 32 years and she came along about 10 years after we were married so we were kind of a emergency baby sort of notion and just to support that she was born on 911 so it was kind of interesting we're just like oh this is our 911 one baby and she was always a

[\[01:03\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvlOcRcANpg&t=63s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) Real special child she had a real Compassionate Heart she was you know above average in a lot of ways but she was a loyal and dear friend to so many people she was unusual in that people her friends would look up to her I mean that's kind of weird and but they had so much respect for who she was and what she stood for she was way before community service was ever popular thing to do she was out there working at the food bank and organizing shifts and just all those wonderful things that mother can be proud of she was you know captain of the tennis team boys and girls that's she had leadership abilities what else can I tell you about shell I think about it too much it'll make me too sad because shelle was a war a casualty of the War on Drugs she had been at UVA year and was starting the she was a week into her

[\[02:06\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvlOcRcANpg&t=126s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) Second year that's what they say at UVA they don't say sophomore they say second year so she had gone to called me I was traveling out west with my husband actually we were returning from Chicago he had a meeting there we were in Kentucky and I had known that she was going to go to a concert I mean I was a college student once going dancing going to a concert was a perfectly natural thing to do so I knew that she was going but we were in Kentucky it's about 2:30 in the morning and I got a call from one of her friends and he said oh I'm so sorry I said what is it you know tell me what's going on and she Shel she's an ambulance I'm so sorry she took Molly and being the uninformed person that I was I said who's Molly Every Mother's Nightmare right so we couldn't fly back we were in Kentucky we had access to private planes but everybody everything was socked in with fog and so we did the most horrible

[\[03:08\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvlOcRcANpg&t=188s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) N and a half journey of hour Journey Of My Life I kept watching the clouds and I saw a crescent moon and there was a star and then it kind of the clouds went over it and I said oh no don't let that be it and then it came back and so I thought okay we got that hope and then it went completely black and I knew at that moment that she wasn't with me anymore and it was true I never saw her got to hold her again she was in ER and but she was unresponsive to everything so anyway we drove up there and they tried to resuscitate her she at the club apparently they had she and her friends particular fraternity I think had rented a bus to be responsible citizens and not add to crowd issues in DC they'd all taken MDMA went to the concert and they'd been there about four hours I guess when Shelly suffered from hypothermia heat stroke and died from Cardiac Arrest at the time we thought it was

[\[04:10\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvlOcRcANpg&t=250s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) An adulterated drug because nobody else had died I mean it didn't make any sense to us we got the toxicology reports back three months later right up until the 90 90day deadline and it was diagnosed to have been MDMA intoxication so with that information I was really really confused because I was in my own mind I was saying well it makes sense that it was that she'd got something that somebody else didn't get so when I got this information I had to look into what MDMA was and the more I looked into it the more I realized that that probably wasn't what killed her she from all Witnesses I don't know how much she took I assume she took what other people take but I wasn't there I don't know what she took I knew it was pure MDMA so the research and the people that started to reach out to me helped me understand that it probably wasn't the MDMA that killed her and more than

[\[05:13\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvlOcRcANpg&t=313s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) Likely it was the situation that she was in so you all probably know that MDMA interferes with your body's ability to regulate temperature and at this particular Club in DC and I'll call it out it's Echo stage don't anybody go to Echo stage for an EDM concert it'll kill you I mean it's just don't do it it's a very unsafe Concert Hall but at the event I later learned that it had things going on there that made it particularly unsafe for people that were attending concerts there particularly EDM there were no crowd control measures there was no water I don't know if any probably some of you were at the breakout session this afternoon where I talked about so this is what happens when you lose a child it's like getting shot in the head because I have a train of thought and then I just lose it so excuse me so

[\[06:15\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvlOcRcANpg&t=375s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) Let me back up a little bit okay so later to find out that at the club it was very overcrowded it was overheated they didn't have adequate water they had people in the restrooms to keep people from even filling their water bottles there had been my research since then has shown that they've had a medical Emer they've had three deaths in the 36 months that they've been open they've had over 45 911 calls in that 36 months and so this fed into this realiz of mine that well I don't understand how can you have these unsafe settings like this is ludicrous the people are dying you've got medical emergencies right and left we what's going on and again through lots of support from lots of good people I

[\[07:15\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvlOcRcANpg&t=435s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) Came to learn that there was this law that was standing in the way of event promoters and organizers venue owners from implementing what I'm calling safe setting measures you know adequate water free and abundant water peer-to-peer education the things that have been mentioned before and that they couldn't Implement those things because they would be prosecuted under the Rave act okay so I have to learn all about the Rave act has imposed a fear among promoters for instituting safe setting measures the DEA I understand is maybe prosecuted one event organizer and I don't even know if that led to a prosecution or not but the fear itself is what keep is keeping many of these events from being the safe environments

[\[08:16\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvlOcRcANpg&t=496s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) That they can be should people choose to use they are also very unsafe for people that don't use it's a dangerous situation understanding that the Act was a problem I'm a political science major I worked for Congressman for a number of years and understood that amending the Rave act yes it takes an act of Congress but there are sometimes ways that can you can affect change with legislation through an amendment that wouldn't be so so big that it would be just an obstacle in and of itself it can be attached to other legislation there lots of things that can be done so in the year after Shelly died launched the amend the Rave act campaign we've met with several legislators both of my Virginia con Senators Senator Kane and Senator Warner I've met

[\[09:17\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvlOcRcANpg&t=557s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) With them and pretended presented the petitions and I've also met with the White House and the reception from the White House the office of National Drug control policy they've been great they want to fix this and when I did the research into the legislation itself it's getting a little bit crazy but it there seems to be a way to do it with even out amend with without amending the Rave act you could change the regulations that were being used by people who were interpreting the legislation so if you had ondcp say oh well it excludes this and they put that in the regulations and send that out then that would be as good as amending the Rave act so the point is is to make this the settings much safer than they are now and to do that has taken a lot of effort by a lot of people we've gathered 14,000 signatures people

[\[10:20\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvlOcRcANpg&t=620s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) Have been unbelievably supportive I'm really glad to be on this journey because it gives me Focus the loss of Shelly from my life has been devastating I have a son my previous marriage I have three grandchildren but shell was fun she was my product of my husband my current husband and we've been married like I said 32 years and she was just such a delightful part of our life and we don't have that anymore and we miss her an awful lot but working on the amenda r has given me some Focus meeting and working with all the young people that are working towards drug reform drug policy reform has been amazing I get it I want more people my age to get it I think there's a tendency to try to forget that you were once to were once wild and risk

[\[11:20\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvlOcRcANpg&t=680s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) Taking teenagers or young people so I just I don't know what to say I want to say thank you is what I want to say without you all I couldn't be where I am today it has really given me hope I think we can change this I think it'll be a foot in the door if we can get peer-to-peer education and on site in the events that is step one folks that is step one the safety measures they might be able to say oh well that's a public safety issue we're going to put that to Department of Health or something but if we can package it all together into a safe settings I think we've got something really important thank you \[Applause\]