ZOMBIE DRUG: POLICE CALLOUTS DOUBLE
Horrendous toll on emergency services as Spice leaves trail of misery across UK
THE crushing burden of the zombie drug Spice on police, prisons and the NHS is revealed today by a Daily Mail investigation.
Police callouts involving the synthetic cannabis substitute almost doubled in the first three months of 2017.
Officers in some cities are now reporting as many as six cases a day relating to the drug, which can leave its users staggering about the streets before becoming virtually comatose.
Doctors warn that the problem is crippling health services, with Spice users increasingly being admitted to hospital with hallucinations, seizures and symptoms of schizophrenia.
They believe the drug, which costs as little as £5 for a day’s supply, is more dangerous and powerful than heroin and crack cocaine.
It comes after official figures this month showed Spice-related deaths have more than trebled from eight in 2015 to 27 last year.
Formerly sold as a so-called legal high, it was banned in Britain last year. But experts warn that new versions of Spice have since made it more dangerous and unpredictable.
Prison officers say abuse of the drug in jails has reached epidemic levels, and urged the Government to take immediate action.
Spice is not a single drug, but includes several related chemical concoctions known as synthetic cannabinoids that were created to mimic the effects of cannabis.
The chemicals are usually sprayed on to dried plants before being smoked like a cigarette or in a pipe.
Spice is popular among the homeless because it is cheap, and there is a lucrative trade in prisons because it does not show up in drug tests.
Between April 2015 and March 2016, police dealt with at least 1,009 Spice- related incidents, according to figures given to the Mail following Freedom of Information requests.
However, this rose to 2,287 between April 2016 and March this year.
But these figures only relate to the 21 of Britain’s 45 police forces that responded in full to the FoI request, so the real toll will be far worse.
In January, there were at least 223 police callouts across the UK. This almost doubled to 438 in March.
Spice is a particularly urgent problem in big cities. In Manchester, police had to deal with 188 cases in March – a rate of six every day and more than double the 72 recorded cases in February.
Officers from West Midlands Police attended 55 callouts in March, up from 50 in February.
Increasing numbers of deaths are being linked to Spice. Last October, 32-year-old Nicholas Williamson collapsed and died in central London after smoking Spice.
After Spice was outlawed last year, it became an offence to possess it, supply it, possess it with intent to supply or possess it in custody.
The maximum sentence is seven years in prison.
But figures show many police forces made just a few dozen arrests in the months after the law changed.
Former Labour Home Secretary Lord Blunkett said the lack of action against the drug ‘discredits the law’.
Spice is a particular problem in prisons. Criminals smuggle so much into jails that 20 officers at a single prison went home sick during one week in July after inhaling fumes.
Rioters also took over The Mount prison in Bovingdon, Hertfordshire, for two days in July after the amount of the drug available there rocketed.
Psychoactive substances including Spice were linked to the deaths of at least 79 prisoners between June 2013 to September last year, the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman said.
Glyn Travis, of the Prison Officers’ Association, said addicts could be violent, adding: ‘The problem has reached epidemic levels. More staff are being affected – not just in prisons, but the police and NHS.’
Commander Simon Bray, drugs spokesman for the National Police Chiefs’ Council, said it put a strain on forces across the country. He added: ‘This is a visible problem.’
A spokesman for the Home Office said: ‘Our new drug strategy has placed recovery and protecting the vulnerable at its heart — supporting people though treatment while tackling the supply of illegal drugs.’
A drug dealer has been jailed after Spice worth more than £46,000 was found at a house in Manchester – one of the biggest seizures of the drug in the city. At Manchester Crown Court on Wednesday, Anthony Hunt, 32, was given seven years and nine months for several drugs offences.
g.keogh@dailymail.co.uk Rise of the zombies From the Mail, March 11
SLUMPED and stupefied in busy town centres, the Spice addicts in these photographs provide graphic proof of the drug’s dehumanising effects.
One is doubled over, frozen on the pavement with his head drooped and arms hanging limply, while others lie comatose on the ground as commuters and tourists pass by.
The latest city to be affected is Lincoln, where Spice users were pictured collapsed and covered in vomit on shop floors and in parks.
One sat in a crumpled heap at the bottom of a public phone box.
Business owners in Lincoln said addicts walked around like zombies, pestering customers, shouting abuse and begging for change.
Debra Swain, who runs the Riverside Cafe, said: ‘It is like watching the Walking Dead.
‘I get here at 5am when it is pitch black. I am a just a woman on my own. It can be intimidating. Sometimes I lock myself in.’
The Mail has spent months visiting the worst affected areas.
In Manchester, reporters spoke to Ryan, a homeless man on a busy pavement who was lighting up a pipe filled with tobacco and Spice.
Moments later, he was sweating, incoherent and barely able to move. Aged just 24, he looked ten years older, his face sunken.
The once aspiring motorcycle mechanic has taken Spice daily for two years, adding: ‘It puts you to sleep. It helps you forget about your situation. I was on weed, but this is easier to get hold of and cheaper.’
For just £5, users can buy a small bag of Spice. For £10 more, they can buy a ‘ball’ as large as an orange that can last more than a week.
Despite originally being peddled as an alternative to cannabis, the effects of Spice are different and wildly unpredictable.
Users hallucinate, sweat profusely and their limbs refuse to move as they overheat. It can cause liver failure, kidney failure and death.
The zombie- like effects are believed to last for ten to 30 minutes before users regain lucidity.
They can then fall back into a stupor within minutes. Other sideeffects such as paranoia and dizziness can last for up to eight hours. In Charing Cross, central London, tourists looked on in horror as a man on Spice stood in one spot for ten minutes while doubled over. He then walked 50 yards before freezing again and could not respond coherently to offers of help.
In Birmingham, users Leon and Ray rolled the drug with tobacco into joints. Within moments, Leon could do no more than stare glassyeyed into the middle distance.
Leanne, who is homeless, said she became hooked after accepting a cigarette. Unknown to her, it had been dipped in the drug.
‘It made me black out and I don’t remember much,’ she said. ‘But that is why I still take it – because it helps me forget.
‘Now I can’t get off it. I’m not normal unless I take it because I’m so addicted, I have the shakes, I start sweating and throwing up, but as soon as I have a drag I’m fine.’
Experts claim Spice is sold to the homeless, addicts and those with mental health issues because they are less likely to be scared of the dangerous side-effects.
It come in up to 100 chemical variations, making the effects of each batch completely unpredictable.
Dr Janos Baombe, 41, a consultant in emergency medicine at Manchester Royal Infirmary, treats up to five people a week who become seriously ill after using the drug. But he sees many more incapacitated around the city centre. He said: ‘I have never seen drugs this dangerous or this powerful.
‘Within days you can become tolerant and need to take more.
‘The withdrawal symptoms are similar to somebody coming off heroin, but Spice users become hooked much more quickly.’
Spice has begun blighting smaller towns, including Torquay in Devon. Business owners in the Castle Circus area claim up to six ambulances are called every day. Catherine Livingston, 46, who owns the Castle Pub, said: ‘People are like zombies, passing out near the road.’
Kevin Foster, the local Tory MP, said: ‘It’s only a matter of time before we have a death.’