Urgent warning after dozens fall ill from fake batches of heroin in London

Police have issued a warning to drug users after 17 people in a London borough were taken to hospital after taking what they thought was heroin.

Up to 33 people fell ill after taking the unknown substance, prompting emergency responses in Hampstead Heath, Oval Road and Jamestown Road areas of Camden.

Police believe the drugs were actually synthetic opioids, which can be incredibly dangerous – the UK issued a ban on them last year.

DCI Chris Soole, a senior officer in Camden, said: ‘We continue to work alongside our partners, including the local council and health professionals, to establish the full circumstances and identify everyone who has been affected.

‘It is clear that this remains in circulation, especially in the Camden area, and it causes an extreme reaction. In one of the most recent cases, just after 8 pm on Wednesday evening, Met officers gave emergency first aid to a man in cardiac arrest in Haverstock Road, Camden.

‘He had taken what he thought was heroin and it is likely that the actions of those officers saved his life.’

No arrests have been made yet, but anyone with information about drug dealers in the area has been urged to reach out to police.

Councillor Anna Wright, who works with Camden Council’s Cabinet Member for Health, Wellbeing and Adult Social Care, said the cases are extremely worrying, and outreach teams are working in the affected locations.

Access to Naloxone kits has also been prioritised, she said, adding: ”Contaminated heroin continues to be an issue of national concern.’

Naloxone is a medication which is readily available across the UK, for free, that can immediately reverse opioid overdoses.

Overdoses from lethal synthetic opioids have risen across the United Kingdom and Ireland.

One of the most common are nitazenes –  a synthetic opioid more than fifty times stronger than heroin – which have infiltrated illicit drug supplies and have been linked to hundreds of deaths.

First detected in white powder sampled from a Wakefield taxi in April 2021, nitazenes have since been detected in cannabis, crack cocaine, heroin and even vapes.

They are a new type of super-strength opioid that can be almost tens and many hundreds times more potent than morphine, according to The Pharmaceutical Journal.

Last March, the UK announced a further ban on synthetic opioids, including nitazenes, in a bid to tackle the issue.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.