People are dying... the UK opioid crisis will be as bad as in the States
Reformed dealer turned pastor warning over new street drug
A reformed drug dealer-turnedpastor who works with addicts has warned a synthetic drug could cause mass death and a US-style opioid crisis here.
Pastor Mick Fleming, 58, who runs Church on the Street, says the charity has already dealt with eight deaths this year – compared to the three annual opiate deaths it usually sees – due to the influx of nitazenes, which are being cut with street drugs.
Dealers are using the drug – some strains of which can be hundreds to thousands times stronger than morphine – to stretch out their supply and create an even stronger substance so users quickly become hooked.
He says: “It is horrible. Nobody is buying a bag of nitazenes, that would be like buying a bag of death. It is already in lots of drugs.”
In the US, illicit fentanyl – a type of synthetic opioid created in drug labs in Mexico – is by far the biggest cause of overdose deaths, with as many as 200 Americans dying each day.
Pastor Mick’s shocking revelations come within weeks of the Government classifying 14 types of nitazenes as Class A drugs, with the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs warning they are highly addictive, incredibly dangerous and pose a higher risk of overdose.
Sadly, Mick, author of Blown Away: From Drug Dealer to Life Bringer, does not believe that outlawing nitazenes – most of which he says are being manufactured in China – will have much effect.
Mick, who met the Prince and Princess of Wales when they visited his charity in Burnley, Lancs, says: “There is just no way a ban is going to do anything to stop it. However, the good thing is at least it raises awareness.
“At the moment, nitazenes are in hardcore drugs like heroin, so the type of people who will use that are more likely to be hardcore drug users.
“Soon it is going to be more about the deaths. Because it’s getting into other drugs.”
Mick, a drug addict for 30 years, says it will not just be intentional opiate users, but others who have taken different drugs laced with it.
Believing it is too late to stop the tide of nitazenes entering the UK, he says harm reduction is key and wants more people to carry Naloxone, a medicine that rapidly reverses the effects of an opioid overdose.
He says: “Naloxone needs to be available up and down the country, with people trained up to use it in every local area, in supermarkets, chemists, local shops – and to have the police trained up to use it too.
“I’ve got grandmothers and greatgrandmothers who have never had any connection to drug addiction, learning to administer
Naloxone, as they recognise that they could save someone’s life.
“Drug addiction is a problem that’s started in society, through deprivation and the vicious cycle of mental illness and poverty.
“It’s a problem that society can also solve.”
The National Crime Agency reported 54 deaths in the last six months of 2023 where nitazenes were detected in post-mortem toxicology.
But, as nitazene tests are not done following a drug death, it does not routinely appear in toxicology reports.
Because of the drug’s strength, symptoms can develop too quickly for the user to seek medical help – and those who do make it in time require modified treatment.
Authorities will soon be testing for it specifically but until then nitazene deaths are being grossly underestimated, Mick says. He adds: “We don’t have correct figures yet but we know it is horrendous. We’re doing the funerals, so we know that people are dying and they weren’t dying before.
“It’s not a coincidence. We’re seeing hardcore drug users overdose and die and that never happens because their bodies are tolerant and they know how to use. They don’t normally die.
“So when they start dropping dead you know there is something in the gear.” A government spokesman said: “We have established a cross-government taskforce to co-ordinate our response to the risk from synthetic opioids, including nitazenes.
“Our drug strategy is focused on tackling the supply through relentless policing action and we are investing £532million to tackle addiction, as well as building a world-class system of treatment and recovery.”