Police boss warns teenagers could be using vapes laced with heroin-like drug

The crime commissioner for Hampshire has warned that vapes are being laced with lethal drugs ‘100 times stronger’ than heroin.

Donna Jones, chair of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, said that teenagers are at risk after ‘low level’ synthetic opioids were found in vapes.

Young people across Britain are using vapes with schools encouraging pupils to give up.

Ms Jones made her comments on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Friday.

She said Chinese criminal gangs were exploiting the drugs market to lace heroin with synthetic drugs – known as nitazene.

This makes the dose stronger and potentially lethal as addicts can unintentionally overdose.

Asked if the threat is isolated to Class A drug users, she said: “Yes, it is to the drug-using community. It’s a very isolated group of people actually here.

“But what we have seen is there are other types of things like MDMA and other street-based recreational type drugs that are also getting much much stronger as Chinese criminal gangs are exploiting this market.

“We have actually seen vapes, so particularly young people, children, teenagers that are vaping – we’ve actually seen some very low-level nitazene in vapes as well.

“There is the potential here for this to have a much wider effect. I don’t want to frighten people.

“This at the moment is very much isolated to that Class A market but I’ve been raising this with the Home Office over the last year.”

It comes as police minister Chris Philp has announced that Britain is creating an early-warning system to spot synthetic opioids in the UK.

Fentanyl has already caused countless deaths in America.

Speaking on Today, Ms Jones said Chinese gangs were exploiting a ‘gap in the market’ after the Taliban reduced the exportation of heroin from Afghanistan – the main source of the drug.

She said: “It’s already happened in America over the last year.

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“They are now creating synthetic opioids, things called nitazene – they are up to 100 times stronger than normal street heroin.

“Now the problem in Britain at the moment, we are seeing accidental overdoses and people dying, taking what they think is the normal heroin that they would have on the street, it is being cut and laced with synthetic opioids.

“Heroin addicts become very good at knowing their own level, their own supply. They know what they can take.

“Now, when you’re then bringing into the mix a synthetic-based opioid and they’re not aware that that’s what they’re taking, their body can’t cope, their central nervous system shuts down – and that’s where we’re seeing the accidental overdoses. It’s very tragic.”