OPIOID ALERT Urgent warning as head of Britain’s FBI says there has NEVER been a more dangerous time to take drugs
A SURGE in drugs laced with synthetic opioids known as nitazenes has led to hundreds of deaths, crime fighters warn.
The killer substances are increasingly being used to bulk out counterfeit Valium and Xanax, as well as heroin.
But nitazene adulteration, which increases a drug’s strength but makes it easy to overdose, has been linked to 284 deaths since June last year.
National Crime Agency director general Graeme Biggar said: “You can absolutely die the very first time you take it and you very often don’t know you are taking it.
“It can be heroin that has been adulterated. It has been put into a pill that you think is something else.
“Anyone, a teenager, might be taking a drug thinking it’s something else and it’s nitazene. It’s incredibly strong and you die."There has never been a more dangerous time to take drugs.”
The warning comes as figures show there were 4,305 drug deaths in Britain in 2022.
The rate has more than doubled in ten years and is now among the highest in Europe.
The NCA says it seized £17billion worth of class A drugs last yearBut the agency warns illegal drugs are still a key driver of organised crime blighting towns across the UK
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