People Are Dying... The UK Opioid Crisis Will Be As Bad As In The States

Reformed dealer turned pastor arning over new street drug

- LYDIA VELJANOVSKI

A reformed drug dealer-turned-pastor who works with addicts has warned a synthetic A drug could cause mass death and a US-style opioid crisis here.

Pastor Mick Fleming, 58, who runs Church on the Street, says the charity has already dealt with eight deaths this year compared to the three annual opiate deaths it usually sees - due to the influx of nitazenes, which are being cut with street drugs.

Dealers are using the drug - some strains of which can be hundreds to thousands times stronger than morphine - to stretch out their supply and create an even stronger substance so users quickly become hooked.

He says: "It is horrible. Nobody is buying a bag of death. It is already in lots of drugs." In the US, illicit fentanyl a type of synthetic opioid created in drug labs in Mexico - is by far the biggest cause of overdose deaths, with as many as 200 Americans dying each day.

Pastor Mick's shocking revelations come within weeks of the Government classifying 14 types of nitazenes as Class A drugs, with the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs warning they are highly addictive, incredibly dangerous and pose a higher risk of overdose.