DESPERATE junkies will be left "scrambling" to get their fix after one of Glasgow's biggest heroin seizures, it was claimed today.

Drugs expert Graeme Pearson MSP believes the £2million of heroin recovered by police will have a "significant" impact on city supplies.

The Evening Times told how a man was arrested after he was allegedly found with 31kg of heroin.

Drugs squad officers caught the 42-year-old in Doncaster Street, Maryhill and recovered the haul.

Mr Pearson, former Director General of the Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency, said the availability of the class A drug will be disrupted in the coming weeks.

He said: "It will have a significant impact, but it will be the next stage supply that will be affected.

"Not this coming week; the £10 bags will be ready to go, but in the weeks and months ahead, we will really begin to see an impact.

"They will be scrambling around to get their hands on supplies. It will also cause upset among the team involved.

"There will be a lot of distrust among them about who leaked the information to the police.

"And the biggest loss for them at the moment will be the money lost in the deposit. You can't ask for your deposit back just because the police have taken the drugs."

A series of intelligence-led operations has made it more difficult for addicts to buy, and harder to find heroin of high purity, on sale from dealers.

Drug busts in Glasgow are up and Statement of Opinion Unit (STOP Unit) officers have seized heroin worth more than £3million in the past six months.

Police recently smashed a £250,000 drugs ring suspected of selling heroin on city centre streets.

Seven men and three women - aged between 21 and 47 - were arrested in connection with alleged drugs offences during Operation Futa.

Drugs worth more than £1m were also seized by police in Drumchapel.

Officers raided a property where they recovered the haul, thought to be heroin, cocaine, amphetamine and cannabis.

Two men, aged 46 and 47, were arrested in connection with the find.

In March, two men were arrested after £250,000 of heroin was recovered in Maryhill.

Just days earlier, another two men were arrested after drugs with a street value of £25,000 were found in a car in Glasgow's West End.

Earlier this month we told heroin dealers are topping up drugs with so-called legal highs to cope with the supply shortage.

Mr Pearson said mixing illegal drugs and legal highs is a "dangerous development".

He added: "Polypharmacy, as they call it in the trade, kills people.

"Abusing a number of different drugs - including alcohol - at the same time is very dangerous."

Deadly legal highs are becoming as dangerous as hard drugs, according to drug experts.

rebecca.gray@eveningtimes.co.uk