Worrying signs that Spice has 'crept back' onto the streets of city

But expert says he doesn't expect a return to dark days

- CHRIS SLATER

IT was a depressingly familiar sight. A woman hunched over in a semicatatonic state on one of the city's main thoroughfares at 11am on a weekday morning.

She wasn't alone. In doorways and on benches, several more people were laid out appearing to be under the influence, rendered virtually unconscious.

Following the Manchester Evening News' grim discoveries last month after two days of observing in the city centre, drug users, people sleeping rough and those tasked with helping them, all told us that Spice the drug that once caused carnage on our streets - was rearing its ugly head, again.

The city was dubbed 'Spicechester' such was the prevalence of people being left in 'zombie-like' states as a result of the synthetic cannabinoid and former 'legal high, back in 2017.

Things got so bad there were 58 drug-related call-outs to the city centre on one weekend alone.

Things have improved markedly since then. Emerging from the crisis, a drug monitoring, testing and alert system has won plaudits and been replicated up and down the country.

Mike Linnell is at the heart of that data network.

He runs Greater Manchester's Local Drug Information System where over 1,000 professionals from a range of organisations - such as police, schools, hospitals, substance misuse services, and youth services submit and receive reports of incidents relating to drugs and emerging trends.

If needed, warnings can then be issued to the public.

He says the drug has 'crept back'.

But he does not expect a return to the dark days of seven years ago.

"Obviously there were major issues a few years ago, that kind of dissipated quite a lot," he said.

"It was big in Manchester during the pandemic, but it has crept back. We've had reports going back six months or so saying that you know, 'it's kind of back.

"We haven't had the kind of incidents that were occurring in the past so far.