The UK has “one of the highest rates of drug deaths in Europe”, the National Crime Agency has said – as it warned about a rise in the use of “incredibly strong” synthetic opioids.
Graeme Biggar, director-general of the agency, said “there has never been a more dangerous time to take drugs” after 4,300 people died due to drug misuse in the UK in 2023.
He said the number of drug fatalities every year has increased by 60% since 2013 and had tripled over the last 30 years.
Mr Biggar shared the figures as he explained over the last year the National Crime Agency (NCA) had seen the presence of synthetic opioids in greater numbers after previously emerging in small levels in the form of drugs like fentanyl – which is 50 times stronger than heroin.
One of those synthetic opioids is nitazene, which can be up to 300 times stronger than heroin.
The NCA director-general said it is being mixed with heroin, as well as cocaine and street pills.
Mr Biggar said there have been 284 deaths caused by nitazene or versions of it since the surge in use of the substance began in June 2023.
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He stressed that number is likely to rise as investigations into other deaths continue.
Leading a briefing on the state of crime in the UK, Mr Biggar said: “That is a relatively small proportion of overall drug deaths, but it has been growing. It is significant.”
He added: “From nitazene, you can absolutely die the very first time you take it, and from nitazene, you very often don’t know you are taking it.
“It is heroin that’s been adulterated. It’s been put into a pill that you think is something else. And so anyone, a teenager, might be taking a drug thinking it is something else, and it’s nitazene. It is incredibly strong, and you die.”
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In the majority of nitazene cases, the substance was “consumed unintentionally alongside other drugs such as heroin and/or benzodiazepines, with very small quantities capable of leading to overdose and death”, according to a document setting out the NCA’s national strategic assessment.
The report added: “We must prepare for these substances to become widely available, both unadvertised in fortified mixes, and in response to user demand as a more potent high.”
Mr Biggar said there is concern the increase of nitazene in the UK drug market will lead to “more and more people unwittingly taking it and dying from it”.
The NCA director-general said his warning applied to anyone who takes recreational drugs as he highlighted that the agency estimates the cost to society in the UK from the misuse of drugs is £20bn.
Mr Biggar explained during the briefing that it has “always been the case that if you’re a drug user, you do not know what you are taking”, before adding: “But that is ever more the case now.”
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He said drugs were the biggest single driver of organised crime in the UK and remained the “most important crime type” for the law enforcement agency to be tackling.
