Call for drug regulation as fatal overdoses rise

The government has been urged to follow the advice of the charity Release, which argues that “using criminal sanctions for drug offenses creates more harm”, reports Noah Vickers, local reporter for Democracy.

Sadiq Khan has been urged to call on the new government to legalize the drug amid a rising number of fatal overdoses from synthetic opioids in the UK.

Zoë Garbett, a member of the London Assembly, said the move would ensure “supply is taken out of the hands of criminals and put into the hands of healthcare professionals instead”.

Similar calls have been made by organizations such as the charity Release, which argues that “the use of criminal penalties for drug offenses creates more harm for individuals, their families and society”.

The mayor said that changing drug laws was not in his remit and that he supported “the new government’s mission to take back our streets and tackle these problems through enforcement, prevention and early intervention.”

It comes as concerns grow over the recent proliferation of nitazenes – a type of synthetic opioid – in the UK’s drug supply. They are mostly mixed with heroin by organized gangs, but they are much stronger than heroin.

In March, more than 100 deaths were reported to have been linked to nitazenes since the summer of 2023, according to the National Crime Agency.

Niamh Eastwood, chief executive at Release, said the trend was partly caused by the ban on opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan announced by the Taliban in April 2022.

“It led to a significant drop in production,” Eastwood said. “We thought it would probably take about 18 months to see the impact, but we actually saw the impact much sooner because the prices of heroin also went up.”

The reduced supply and higher cost of importing heroin meant that nitazenes were used to compensate for the reduced purity.

“I’ve been in this business for 20 years and I’ve never been afraid of a changing market before,” Eastwood said.

“We’ve had an incredibly robust market with largely safe purity levels within heroin – so about 30 or 40%, historically. There have been peaks and troughs (…), but this is the first time we’ve seen a change in the market.”

She added: “We will see, we think – because it’s a new market – a change in (active) demand for nitazene, which happened with fentanyl in the US. So it’s no longer fentanyl contaminating the market — fentanyl is the market.”

Garbett, who ran against Khan in the recent mayoral election on a manifesto promising a “harm reduction approach” to drugs, said Londoners had “seen no improvement in the city’s drug policy” under to.

“We cannot become complacent about the damage caused by drugs and the horrible future facing London if we continue on this path of inaction,” she said.

“The only solution from our government is to legally regulate drugs so that the supply is taken out of the hands of criminals and into the hands of healthcare professionals – and it would be transformative if the Mayor of London called for it.”

Supervised drug use centers – where people can go to use illegal drugs without being charged – already exist in many European cities. Glasgow will soon have the first such facility in the UK, funded by the Scottish Government.

Asked about drug legalization at Mayor’s Questions last week, Khan pointed to London’s Commission on Drugs, which independently considers the effectiveness of the UK’s drug laws – albeit only those specifically relating to cannabis.

On the subject of synthetic opioids, his spokesman added: “Nothing is more important to the Mayor than keeping Londoners safe.

“The rise of synthetic opioids in the capital is worrying and is having an impact on cities across the UK. That’s why the City is working with health partners, the Government and the police to coordinate a joint response to best tackle this growing problem.”

The Department of Health and Social Care has also been contacted for comment.

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