SUN, SAND AND SPICE
Deadly drug leaving addicts like zombies is sold
In Blackpool we found it was no more difficult to get hold of than a postcard or a stick of rock. A man sleeping rough in a doorway, who gave his name as Lee, rolled a cigarette and said he could easily source some for a tenner.
He then set off to a neat apartment block, near the town’s job centre, and five minutes later returned with a pack of Spice in a clear plastic bag.
Lee, in his mid 20s, turned to drugs after splitting up with his girlfriend and ending up on the streets.
He has been smoking Spice for two years but wishes he had never started.
He said: “It’s addictive, man. It just gets you. It’s really cheap. I can get it easy enough. I’ve seen people get nasty on it.
“People used to get it from the head shops and smoke it that way. But it’s just as easy to get now.
“I started smoking it because it just chilled me out. Helped me crash. But you just keep wanting more. Nearly all the people on the street around here take it. It’s strong stuff.
“I used to smoke weed but this stuff is ten times stronger than that.
“I wish I could stop but it’s powerful stuff. Just about all the homeless people around here take it.”
Spice first appeared on the streets two years ago but has been outlawed as a class B drug with a maximum five years’ jail for possession.
Last year the death of homeless Nicholas Williamson, 34, was reportedly linked to Spice. Nicholas, of North London, was found dead near Trafalgar Square. He had been trying to quit the drug but said the withdrawal made him “feel like killing people”. In Manchester, wh where Spice users were dubbed the Walking Dead after last week’sw pictures, we were shown how to buy the drug within m minutes of our arrival at the city centre’s PicW PiccadillyWe were Gardens.s wiftly point pointed to two locations where we could buy plastic wraps o of the drug. Dealers gathered in small gangs in certain ar areas around the city, with “spotte “spotters” watching to warn of approachingapproach police or other potential pro problems. And in Bristol one man said he could get hold of Spice in just 40 seconds. The drug was readily available in the notorious Bearpit area where one rough sleeper estimated 80 per cent of the homeless take it. Chris Marshall, 41, said: “Pull out a tenner and I will get you a bag in 40 seconds.” After a quick phone call he produced a £10 bag saying: “It mongs you out and is cheap as chips. It’s a tenner a bag and it’ll last you all day and all night. If I gave you a few sprinkles in a roll-up you would wake up in A&E.
“Once you’re on it it is so hard to get off. It is as strong as heroin and the withdrawals are terrible. You sweat, shake and your anxiety goes through the roof.
Scary
“When you can’t get it you’re like a zombie. They go out begging or busking or crime happens.
“I’ve seen people pull out great big knives saying, ‘I want my f***ing Spice, who’s got it?’ They’re like zombies foaming at the mouth. It’s an evil drug.”
Chris got hooked on Spice during a short spell in Bristol prison for shoplifting but had managed to kick the habit.
He said: “You can’t buy it in shops any more so everybody is buying it off the internet or making it themselves. But they’ve got no idea what they’re doing.
“The first four or five minutes you regret even doing it. It just makes you feel horrible. But then it gets better and you feel positive.
“My friend had a long prison sentence and he ended up with a colostomy bag. It blows your organs up and causes internal bleeding. He was in there for three years and taking it every day.
“When he came out of prison he bought a bigger quantity and his heart blew up.”
Mum-of-two Gemma Sharp, 41, has been taking Spice, on and off, for a year.