DRUG dealers are cooking up fake heroin which is more dangerous than its illegal counterpart.

 

Crooks are creating new - cheaper - substances which mimic the effects of heroin and selling them to city junkies.

Addicts who buy a £10 bag think they're getting heroin, with a purity of around 4%.

But in fact, they are using a potentially-lethal mixture of drugs they have never heard of.

Bags from the same batch of synthetic opioids can contain hugely different, and totally unpredictable, chemical combinations.

One drugs worker, who supports addicts in Glasgow, said: "Drug dealing is about making money.

"Dealers sell the cheapest product so they can to make the maximum profit.

"If they can add something cheap to the gear, they are going to do it.

"They don't know what's in the stuff they're selling and they don't care."

By tweaking the formula, chemists are able to make hundreds of variations of a drug, which are typically much-stronger.

This makes the substances difficult to regulate - but also triggers unpredictable side-effects and increases the risk of overdose.

As reported by the Evening Times last week, police are trying to stay on-top of the substances but as quickly as compounds are made illegal, new ones are created.

A report by the EU drugs agency (EMCDDA), stated: "Among the public health concerns highlighted in the report are new synthetic opioids - often highly potent and sold as heroin to unsuspecting users - posing a high risk of overdose.

"Three of the five opioids reported in 2014 were fentanyls, a family of drugs that have caused hundreds of deaths in Europe and the US."

Wolfgang Götz, EMCDDA director, said the substances poses "challenges" for health professionals.

He said: "The challenges relate to the speed at which the substances appear and the lack of information on their effects and harms."

The Evening Times previously revealed how desperate heroin dealers were topping up the supplies with so-called legal highs.

Following a crackdown by elite drug squad officers, the heroin market has been severely disrupted across Glasgow.

This has forced dealers to add legal highs, some of which are as deadly as hard drugs, to their product.

Meanwhile, police are probing claims a batch of heroin contaminated with botulism was buried by a dealer while he served a prison sentence.

We told how the pusher from Glasgow's East End dug up the stash and began selling it when he was released from jail recently.

Botulism is a potentially fatal illness which can cause paralysis of the arms, legs and the muscles that control breathing.

Five cases were reported earlier this year.