Five inmates die after taking spice laced with fentanyl as killer drug is rife in prisons, report reveals

FIVE cons have died at a prison after taking spice laced with fentanyl, a report has revealed.

The killer drug mix is getting into the jail via mobile phone-guided drones, or is packed into tennis balls, pipes or even fruit and thrown over fences by gangs.

An annual report into conditions at HMP The Mount — a low-security prison near Bovingdon, Herts — revealed that inmates had easy access to spice, a synthetic cannabis, spiked with fentanyl, a morphine-like drug causing mayhem in the US.

The jail’s Independent Monitoring Board said: “The abuse of drugs is the biggest threat to safety at The Mount.

“The prison is in the midst of a crisis caused by the ready availability of a particularly pernicious form of spice laced with fentanyl.

“Five prisoners have apparently died from accidental drug overdoses.

“Shocking though these deaths are, they are only the tip of the iceberg.

"Code Blues — where a prisoner falls unconscious and struggles to breathe — are an everyday event.”