The toxic impact of drug panics

Alarm surrounding the bizarre effects of the latest street drug can be seductive and makes for excellent headlines. But, ask Emily Goddard and Ian Hamilton, what about the harm this causes?

Spice whirl: sensational language around ‘zombies’, ‘face eating’ and ‘Incredible Hulks’ ignores the most vulnerable victims of substance abuse (Getty)

People are reportedly consuming substances that produce “superhuman strength”, trigger “face-eating attacks”, eliminate the ability to feel pain… and make them “smell of prawns”. They may read like the taglines for a graphic novel B-movie adaptation, but if these sometimes frankly ludicrous headlines would have you believe anything, it is that the effects of the class of drugs – including the exotically named “monkey dust” – they speak of are anything but fiction. Instead, we are told they are causing “a public health crisis”.

Media coverage of the “epidemic” in the midlands cites Staffordshire Police saying it received an overwhelming 950 reports in three months related to monkey dust. The West Midlands Ambulance Service has been called out 229 times for problems related to the drug since January and paramedics describe witnessing horror scenes akin to those in Night of the Living Dead. Users, meanwhile, are said to be running into traffic, and scaling and leaping off buildings. One police officer likened trying to restrain them as “like you are dealing with someone who thinks they are the Incredible Hulk”.

The psychoactive substance has been called a “family wrecker” for the supposedly “major” role it is playing in parents’ drug use, accounting for nearly a third of all assessments performed by Staffordshire County Council’s children’s services department. It is being blamed for costing councils “millions” of pounds too, with warnings of millions more being needed if there is no intervention.