Terrifying rise of UK’s most lethal Frankenstein drug EVER as experts fear wave of deaths in 2025 after DIY factory bust
AS cops bust open the doors of the underground drugs lab, they knew they were on to something big.
Determined to crackdown on so-called Frankenstein drugs flooding Britain, they had intelligence that led them to a “sophisticated” drugs factory in Waltham Forest, London.
Inside, they found a staggering 150,000 nitazene tablets - pills said to be up to 500 times more powerful than heroin.
The Met police raid in October was the biggest ever haul of Britain’s most dangerous drug, but it is likely to be the tip of the iceberg.
For 2024 was the year that man-made nitazenes exploded in the UK.
The super-strength drugs have already claimed the lives of at least 230 Brits and experts predict next year the death toll will be even worse.
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Dr Judith Yates, a specialist in drugs and alcohol treatment, told The Sun: “We should be seriously worried about nitazenes in 2025.
“It’s a very, very dangerous drug because it only takes a microgram too much to kill - an amount so small it can’t be weighed.
“Nitazenes are essentially pain killers but, unless you’re a pharmacist with a proper laboratory, it’s hard to find the right dose to ease pain and not cause death.”
The killer substances are being used to bulk out Valium and Xanax bought on the dark web, mostly by Brits trying to ease symptoms of anxiety.
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They are also being mixed with heroin as dealers try to counteract a dramatic reduction in supplies, caused by the Taliban cracking down on opium poppy fields in Afghanistan.
Retired Dr Yates said: “There’s a worry that the heroin supply to Europe is no longer predictable so some dealers are diluting what supplies they have with nitazenes.
“Some heroin samples tested this year found no heroin at all, but nitazenes mixed with other drugs and caffeine.
“Poppies are planted in Afghanistan in November so it will be a couple of more months before anyone knows how many the Taliban have allowed to be planted.
“It’s said that some are being grown in the mountains, where the Taliban has less control but it doesn’t look like any have been sown in the traditionally big poppy growing areas in the Helmand area.
“There are stories of Afghans hiding huge stores of opium under beds and in cupboards, keeping it until they have a wedding or something to fund or just waiting until it’s even more in demand and the price shoots up.
“It’s this instability that’s leading to nitazenes being mixed with heroin.”
Experts, charities and drug workers fear that nitazenes, which earned their nickname 'Frankenstein drugs' because they are easily mixed with other substances, could mirror the fentanyl meltdown in America, which causes around 80,000 deaths a year.
The National Crime Agency - Britain's version of the FBI - has warned in its annual report that there has “never been a more dangerous time to take drugs”.
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."
A nitazene the size of a speck of dust is enough to prove fatal
Dr Caroline Copeland
The most recent Government statistics show that nitazenes killed 179 people across Britain between June 2023 to May 2024, while the NCA linked it to 230 fatalities in the year up to June 2024.
That figure is now likely to be much higher.
Around the regions, the drugs killed 29 in the East Midlands, 33 in the East of England, 18 in London, three in the North East, 12 in the North West, 16 in the South East, 22 in the South West, 21 in the Midlands and 25 in Yorkshire and the Humber.
There are particular concerns about people who self-medicate by buying opioid-type drugs online - either on the dark net or through ‘pharmacies’ in China, where they are mixed in sinister illegal labs.
Easy to overdose
In December 2020, talented pianist Will Melbourne, 19, was found dead in his flat in Cheshire after taking what he thought was a packet of oxycodene, a pain relief and anti-anxiety drug that helped spark America’s opioid problem.
Will, a top-grade mathematician and computer coder who wanted to study at Cambridge University, was trapped in a cycle of anxiety and insomnia and had a diagnosis for autism and ADHD.
In an interview with The Sun last month, Will’s dad John said buying drugs online was “like playing Russian roulette with your life”.
The 55-year-old musician said: “Not enough people know about nitazenes. It feels like Britain is sleepwalking into the same crisis as America when it comes to drugs.”
Opera singer Alex Harpum, 23, died after taking a table laced with nitazene in July last year.
It’s believed Alex thought he was buying Xanax, only available in the UK through prescription, to cope with sleep issues and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
His mum Ann, of North Wales, later told the BBC: “I feel like half of me has gone and will never come back.”
In the year to September 2024, 130 illegal medicines bought online were contaminated with nitazenes, according to drug testing agency WEDINOS.
What are nitazenes?
By Isabel Shaw, health reporter
Nitazenes were first developed in the 1950s as an alternative painkiller.
However, the drugs were so strong and addictive that they were never approved for medical use.
They are available in powder, tablet, and liquid form, which means they can be injected, swallowed, or snorted.
The drug can trigger feelings of pain relief, euphoria, relaxation but also fatal respiratory depression.
Nitazenes first made UK news in 2021 when an 18-year-old took a non-fatal overdose.
Since then, the drug has surged in popularity, becoming the newest killer on the streets.
They are also increasingly flooding Britain as desperate dealers scramble to counteract a dramatic reduction in the global supply of heroin, caused by the Taliban cracking down on opium poppy fields in Afghanistan.
Users believed they were buying benzodiazepines, such as diazepam, insomnia drugs like temazepam and zolpidem and even an allergy tablet called promethazine.
Dr Caroline Copeland, a senior lecturer in pharmacology and toxicology at Kings College London, told The Sun how just a ‘speck’ of nitazene can easily kill.
She said: “Nitazenes are an incredibly potent synthetic, which means it's very easy to overdose from them for two reasons.
“The first is it’s very difficult to take a small amount that’s a non-fatal dose. The size of a speck of dust or a grain of sand is enough to prove fatal.
“If we say that heroin potency is about a one, Fentanyl - which we know is a big problem in the US – is about 50 times stronger than heroin.
“These nitazene compounds are anywhere from 50 times to 500 times more potent than heroin.
“Secondly, it’s dangerous because people don't know that they are taking nitazenes. They think they are purchasing codeine, diazepam or heroin."
Professor Copeland said that organised crime gangs only need to ship a small amount of nitazenes into the country to dilute them with multiple bags of heroin.
Former undercover cop Neil Woods told us: “Everyone is expecting this to get worse and more people will die — there’s no doubt about that.”
Neil, who works with the Law Enforcement Action Partnership, which looks at drug policies, believes the Government should allow doctors to prescribe illegal drugs to take power away from organised crime.
He said: "This is what happened pre-1968 when we had 1,046 heroin users. We now have 300,000. The policies aren't working.
“The epidemic we have now and tsunami of increased deaths is clear cause and effect because we stopped doing things the British way.”
The Government banned the use of 15 synthetic opioids - including 14 nitazenes - in April this year.
Manchester cops were among the first forces to make a bust related to the new laws.
With help with West Midlands Police, they raided an industrial unit in Birmingham, seizing 10kg of suspected drugs.
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The Met haul in October saw 11 arrests after officers also seized a pill-pressing machine, £60,000 cash and hard drives storing £8,000 worth of crypto currency during busts in Enfield between August and November 21.
As opioids pose a huge risk to Britain, it’s a sign of things to come.