Wales hit by an epidemic of ‘zombie’ drug spice
IT’S the middle of the heatwave and a woman is stood, bent double, on the busiest shopping street in Cardiff. She looks like she’s trying to touch her toes, but she’s not moving.
Shoppers and workers out for lunch walk by without paying much attention, though the odd passer-by takes a picture. She sways gently from side to side, her knuckles scrape the floor.
This bizarre, sad scene – where people’s bodies end up involuntarily frozen for several minutes in positions you’d find difficult to do deliberately in the gym – is one people in towns and cities across Britain will have seen, become used to even, despite the fact that a couple of years ago it was unheard of.
This is what spice does to users. It’s why it’s called the “zombie” drug. It’s a cold, harsh way to describe those in thrall to it, but no other word seems to better capture how they look.
It’s not just Cardiff. In Wrexham, a bus driver took pictures of people unconscious outside the town’s bus station. One woman sat slumped next to a large plant pot. The other was lying, literally, in it. In Bridgend town centre in June three people were pictured in the familiar slump, one on a bench and two on the floor.
But if you don’t walk by, if you ask them what it’s like, there’s a message repeated by everyone we speak to – spice is worse than heroin. It hits you with the physical addiction of heroin and the mental need of crack or cocaine.
In Swansea, Lisa, a heroin user living on the streets, says spice is rife. She tried it once but “it scared the life out of me”.
“Spice is dangerous to me”, she says. Then she says it too: “It is worse than heroin.”
Barrie, a 34-year-old from Port Talbot who struggles with heroin addiction, said he tried spice a couple of times while in prison – where he would be offered the drug on a daily basis – and that all it took was a couple of drags to “knock you out for six”.
“You can be out of your mind,” he says, adding that people in that so-called zombie state can see what is going on but they can’t move.
“You don’t know what you’re taking, to be honest,” says one spice user, who says she’s been off the drug for six days.
“Do not take it. It’s the worst drug ever. It’s worse than heroin. Once you’re hooked on it, you’re f***ed basically.”
She’s talking to us in the Butetown area of Cardiff. Butetown is a 20 to 30-minute walk from the likes of John Lewis and Hugo Boss. It was once the beating heart of the city. Today, it’s mostly made up of small council houses loomed over by larger tower blocks, sandwiched between industrial units and the newer, shinier apartments of Cardiff Bay. Its main street, Bute Street, runs from the city centre to Cardiff Bay. Walk down it and the drugs problem is immediately visible.
Halfway down the street is a medical centre. People struggling with addiction come here for help and to get methadone. A couple stumble nearby.
One spice user – who says he stopped using the drug 10 days ago and is determined not to go back – describes how easy it is to get hold of, “like buying sweets”.
“It’s very easy, so easy you wouldn’t believe it. I usually buy £10 worth three times a day. When I used to smoke it, it used to make me feel just comfortable and relaxed. But, other than that, it can wreck your life.”
Asked if he knew anyone whose life spice had wrecked, he says: “It nearly wrecked mine, yes. It can poison you, it can stop your heart. I know people who have died on it recently; it’s really not good, terrible. Something needs to be done about it.
“It’s very, very easy to get addicted to it, but the addiction is more mental than physical. Spice makes you need it physically and mentally. Cocaine is more of a want, whereas heroin is a physical need and spice is in between. It’s a mental want but you’ll be sick, so you physically need it as well.”
Spice is a man-made drug, usually a mix of herbs or shredded plant material with mind-altering chemicals sprayed on them. Although it is sold in packets to look like cannabis, the effects come from the chemicals and can vary massively depending on what’s been used in its production.
It’s smoked in a rolled cigarette, is highly addictive and the effects can vary between feelings of relaxation and euphoria. However, it also causes a significant reduction in the respiratory system, which causes the body to shut down due to low oxygen levels – hence the zombie-like state. One user said their heart was beating so hard it felt like it was going to come out of their chest.
But it doesn’t just send users into a dazed state. Harry Shapiro, director of DrugWise and a drug information and policy analyst, said one user was taken to A&E in that state, only to go berserk once they came out of it.
Outside the medical centre in Butetown, the woman who’s been off it for six days – and started smoking it a year and a half before it was made illegal – describes the effect on her behaviour.
“It’s affected me big-time with my paranoia,” she says.
“It’s not good to come off, it has the same effects as heroin when withdrawing. It’s psychologically addictive. With crack, it’s not a physical withdrawal, it’s psychosis. You see things that aren’t there, you hear things, people talking to you when they’re not, you’re constantly wary and paranoid. I’ve accused my own friends of robbing me when they haven’t.”
In general, spice seems to be a problem among the homeless and prison communities. Users describe how they wake up to several texts from dealers, so they rarely have to go looking. In prison, they say it’s even easier. Inside, the problem has been described as an “epidemic”. People living in Butetown say seeing drug deals outside their homes in broad daylight is now the norm, despite the fact Cardiff’s biggest police station is a neighbour.
“We know people who sell it. You can get it in £5 bags, £10 bags,” says the former spice-using woman.
“We get judged for everything but believe it or not, it’s people who are not homeless who have introduced us to this. Everything is blamed on homeless people. I don’t want to smoke it. I’ve been off it for six days. You can’t just come off it with nothing, though,” she says, adding that Valium and Diazepam help.
At the Butetown medical centre, Dr Simon Braybrook is trying to help and believes the practice has given homeless people a chance.
“The drugs issue has always been huge in Butetown, dating back to the
19th century when there were opium dens, and it likely always will be. Drug use isn’t confined to the homeless and drug use varies. People living on the streets are likely to have access to drugs such as cocaine. There’s definitely an association with drug use and their socio-economic background – when there is a recession, there will be more problems with drug and crime.
“Drug use affects everyone and we all need to be speaking about it because it can affect our children tomorrow,” says Dr Braybrook.
“We need to recognise people use drugs for a reason and address that concern and kill people’s curiosity.”
That said, the response to the medical centre’s work has been mixed.
“Some residents say we are making the problem worse by making ourselves accessible,” he says.
Residents in Butetown say they are fed up and are having to take the problem into their own hands, frustrated at what they see as the police’s failure to tackle the problem. They’ve set up a Neighbourhood Watch team, patrolling the streets at night.
Omar Ali, a member of the team, said: “When I go to work in the morning, you see people taking drugs, it’s constant. Police cars are always driving through but nothing seems to be happening. The Neighbourhood Watch team go out daily and we advise the kids not to sell or take drugs.
“We’ve had instances where kids have found needles outside schools and head teachers have called the police – it’s really worrying.”
An elderly woman takes us from the medical centre to the large Canal Park. Everyone who passes her knows her name. In the park, she points out the discarded needles and other paraphernalia. Just behind us, a kids’ football session is taking place.
“I’ve lived down here all my life and I’ve never witnessed drug-taking on the scale it is today,” she says.
“You could be taking your kids to school and there’s a sale. I’ve even seen dealers fighting amongst themselves, fighting over customers. They’ll circle on bikes, they’ll sell quite openly in the streets where kids are playing. The minute they’ve got their supply they head straight over to the park to take it, or to the tree. They don’t come in ones, they come in gangs, four, five, six, seven, I’ve counted up to 12 of them on a Sunday morning.
“I’ve had to kick them out of the area myself. I’m literally taking it into my own hands because no-one else seems to be doing anything. It’s ruining my life, but I’m not scared of them.”
Some residents, though, are scared, especially of the dealers. One describes how she installed CCTV cameras outside her house because of the “constant” dealing. Her cameras were smashed up, along with a family member’s car, and she says she’s moving out of the area in two weeks.
“The drug issue in Butetown is major and always has been,” says Father Dean Atkins, parish priest at Butetown’s St Mary’s Vicarage, where he says he regularly has to ask people slumped in the church gardens to move on.
“Just last night, I had to move people off the church grounds and some days I have to do it a few times a day. The number of people taking drugs is visibly increasing.”
South Wales Police says spice is “highly unpredictable and dangerous” but that “incidents of its use remain very low” in the area.
However, Inspector Simon Davies said: “Almost daily we receive reports of individuals who are under the influence of spice. Sometimes they are violent or committing anti-social behaviour, other times they appear to be in a comatose state, which is obviously a big concern to us all.”
The force is working with Cardiff Council, drug support agencies and homeless charity The Wallich to tackle it. Instead of arresting those found in possession of spice, they will be referred immediately to a welfare vehicle in the city centre, unless they are suspected of committing more serious offences. Local policing inspector Phillip Griffiths said dealing is met with “zero tolerance”.
Cardiff Council has an outreach team working in the city every day to make people who might need them aware of the services available.
Richard Edwards, chief executive of the Huggard Centre homelessness charity in Cardiff, said: “The growing issue of chronic substance misuse among homeless people in the city is a huge cause for concern and one which we are working very hard to address, both as the provider of the leading centre for rough sleepers in Wales and also in partnership working with the authorities and other frontline agencies.”
Huggard runs an open-access day centre, together with support and accommodation for homeless people within the city, and encourages people to access the centre to get help with issues they face.
“We know that more than 80% of people sleeping rough within our city have a chronic substance misuse issue, often caused or compounded by other problems that they face,” he said.
“To help with this, we provide substance misuse support within our day centre. The aim of this part of our service is not to promote or condone drug use but to provide harm reduction advice and support aimed at minimising the risks of substance misuse on the individual and the wider community.”
Back in Butetown, a spice user has a message for people who might be thinking of taking it.
“Stay away from it,” he says. “You think it’s all fun and games. The first time I smoked it, two drags and I was in Llandough [hospital]. Do not, at any cost, smoke it. It’s bad stuff. I’m going to do my utmost best to stay off it because I know what it does, and I’ve seen good friends die.”