Warning to children over vapes which can lead to cardiac arrest

COUNCIL SETS UP WORKING GROUP AFTER NEW RESEARCH

- CARL EVE and ALISON STEPHENSON

NEW academic research suggests that vapes sold to children are being laced with a dangerous banned psychoactive substance, which could lead to cardiac arrest.

The research suggests that a disturbing one in six vapes seized from schools contains the synthetic ‘zombie’ drug Spice.

In March this year a Plymouth dad went public after claiming that Spice had been put into his son’s vape and had turned him into a “monster”.

He said children were obtaining what has been branded the “zombie drug” via social media, but were then enticed into selling the dangerous fluids. At the time he said : “My own child is hooked on it.

“He’s 14. I caught two dealers last night and they have been handed to the police.” He said the problem was “rife” in Plymouth, adding: “The message has to get out to children and parents.”

Just last month, in a report by ITV West Country, it was revealed how Prof Chris Pudney, a Professor of Applied Biochemistry at the University of Bath, had been testing vapes taken from young people across the country and discovered it was a “struggle to find a school in England where vapes containing Spice were not present”, claiming it was almost “endemic”. He went on to warn that the authorities, including the police, the courts, schools and the Government, needed to start “being honest about it”.

Prof Pudney explained he had visited schools where children had reported collapsing, some with suspected Spice-induced cardiac arrests, after smoking vapes. Other headteachers reported “children vomiting on themselves in assembly” and others being “completely out of it”.

Professor Pudney’s published report on the University of Bath website explained he sampled vape devices from 30 schools in England and found Spice present in vapes taken from 25 of those schools. He explained that about 1 in 6 (16.6%) of the vapes contained Spice, while roughly 1 in 100 (1.17%) contained THC, the psychoactive component of cannabis.