PYRO PANIC ON THE STREETS

HOMELESS COMMUNITY IS ROCKED BY DRUG DEATHS

- BY DAN VEVERS Chief Reporter

SCOTLAND'S homeless community has told of the horror of contaminated street drugs - after 81 people died in three months after taking synthetic opioid "pyro".

One man from Glasgow said his nephew suffered a fatal overdose after smoking heroin laced with the substance.

Nitazenes, produced in illegal labs and used as cutting agents in heroin and benzos, are now implicated in an eighth of all suspected drug deaths, data shows.

They can be 800 times more potent than morphine - with mounting deaths seeing the drugs branded "Britain's fentanyl", referring to the deadly opioids epidemic that has ravaged the US.

We heard harrowing stories this month from homeless people in Scotland's biggest city, where the crisis is most acute, describing addicts found dead in the street and turned "black" in flats.