Heroin shortage in UK is 'putting lives at risk'

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Hospitals are treating a growing number of drug users who have overdosed on heroin mixed with other substances by dealers because of a huge shortage of the opiate across the UK.

One of the most severe heroin 'droughts' for five years has been reported in areas across the UK, including, London, Lancashire, Surrey, and Stockton-on-Tees.

The shortage has been linked not to seizures of the drug by law enforcement agencies but to a fungus that has blighted this year's poppy crop in Afghanistan, reducing it by half.

Users are overdosing on either adulterated heroin, or, in some cases, what has been found to be a combination of a powerful sedative, caffeine and paracetamol. Some have become unconscious very soon after injecting or smoking it, while others have reported vomiting, flu-like symptoms and amnesia, drug agencies say.

One of the most recent reports of overdoses and hospital admissions came last week from Hastings, where four users overdosed even though they had only taken a small amount of what they thought was heroin. Toxicologist Dr John Ramsey, head of the Tictac Communications drugs database at St George's medical school, London, said he had had about 50 recent requests to analyse adulterated heroin.

Full story: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/nov/21/heroin-shortage-uk-overdose-users

[demosincebirth]

1. Methedone?