Seventeen Year Old Dies of Drug Overdose in Flint, Michigan

Jason Burke was your ordinary teen. He loved to play football. He excelled in school, being a 4.0 student. Jason was planning to attend U of M Ann Arbor when he finished school this year. But one night of heavy partying shattered all of this. Jason had never partied with anyone from school before as he kept his head straight on his shoulders. He'd never been arrested, nor had drank alcohol or experimented with drugs. The one and only time would be the last time Jason took drugs.

Jason was invited to a party to celebrate one of his older friend's acceptance to Harvard. He was hesitant on accepting the invitation because he had never gone to a party before. Knowing his friends were into drugs and underage drinking, he refrained from attending these social gatherings.

The seventeen year old student decided he was smart enough to say no to any drugs at a party and decided to go and join his friends for a night of fun and good people.

However, the night would become cold and ugly. Jason returned home from the party about 3 a.m. Thursday morning. That morning, he never woke up.

His parents Don and Shirley found Jason strung out on the bed. At first Shirley assumed he had drank a little and was passed out from the intoxication. After not waking up, Shirley went to gently awaken him and found he was dead.

"Our son has never gotten into trouble with drugs or alcohol. It was a shock. It's awful. I can't even swallow the fact my boy is never going to be around again," Don said of the incident.

To protect confidence in the other party, names will not be revealed of the students who provided the drugs at the party. However, the Burke family has hired a lawyer to prosecute both the parents and the students responsible for Jason's death from the drug overdose.

"He had cocaine and ecstasy in his body," Shirley told me about the cause of his death.

"He had high levels of cocaine in him."

After questioning several students about the party, a girl who attended the party spilled the details of what caused Jason to have the intake of the two drugs.

"She told us they had put an ecstasy pill in his drink to loosen him up and force him to try something," Shirley said of the girl who came forward.

"After he was 'rolling' he said he felt great and wanted to feel more, so they gave him a few lines of cocaine," she continued.

However, Jason's parents learned after snorting the coke he had been offered another pill. Jason accepted it. Jason had never experienced the high from drugs and did not know his limits and when to stop. The one and only time he had taken drugs had taken his life also.

"Parents need to talk to their children about drugs and be more aware of what they're doing when you're not around. Peer pressure is the toughest in school. Jason wouldn't normally give in to that, but it was given to him not by choice," Shirley cries.

Funeral arrangements and visiting has not yet been established as the family wishes to wait until the beginning of next week in order to get more support from family members.

"I don't want to face the next few days when I have to say goodbye to my son for good. He had so much going for him."