Dealers tricking users into taking super-heroin

SCHEMING dealers are getting users hooked on a drug up to 100 times more deadly than heroin.

Use of the painkiller Fentanyl has spiked in the UK over the past 18 months and a new investigation has shown that addicts are buying it without realising.

User Mikey said: “I was going to get heroin one day and I bought that. I didn’t know what it was. “After six or seven times of buying it I found out. It was stronger than the heroin. It does exactly the same thing, just more intense. So I just loved it.”

Fellow user Toni, inset, said: “I was a heroin addict and I went to score a bag off somebody. They never told me that Fentanyl was in it. We took it, I walked round the corner and collapsed and my face hit the pavement. I nearly died.”

She added: “There’s a lot of people are addicted to it now.”

Addict Luke said: “On a scale of one to 10 heroin is a two and Fentanyl is an 11. It’s like going from being slapped with a pillow to being hit by a train.” He added: “I tried it and it blew my head off. It was just so strong.” Last summer it emerged there had been 60 deaths in the UK linked to Fentanyl in just eight months.

The National Crime Agency was so concerned it issued a warning about the dangers posed by the synthetic opioid. Asked if dealers care about the risks from Fentanyl, ex-dealer Lenny said: “Nah, they don’t give a toss. As long as they’re getting their money they aren’t bothered.”

User Mikey admitted he uses Fentanyl despite it sometimes causing temporary blindness.

He said: “I don’t want this life…it’s just the place I got caught up in.”

Addicts based in Hull spoke about the crisis for the new documentary

Drugs Map of Britain.

Watch on Thursday at 11.45pm,

BBC One.