The drug-laced vapes circulating Britain’s schools
Alison*, a teacher at a London state school, recognised the signs of intoxication. But this was different. Her 17-year-old son had been spending a lot of time in his room on his own and was bleary-eyed and lethargic.
“I’d seen him stoned before after taking cannabis and this was different,” she explains.
That evening Alison took her son and daughter to the cinema and her son’s condition deteriorated significantly.
“He was ravenous. He kept getting up to go and buy more snacks, and he couldn’t sit still. He was agitated and restless. He became less lucid, slurring his words and stumbling. His complexion drained and he looked green.”
When they returned home Alison searched her son’s pockets and found vials of clear liquid designed for use in an e-cigarette or vape. When he recovered enough, she found out that he had bought them from a drug dealer thinking they contained THC, the psychoactive component of cannabis. But whatever the compound was, it was much more potent.
It is likely it was a synthetic drug called spice, also known as ‘mamba’ and ‘K2’. It is increasingly being sold by drug dealers who dupe children into thinking they are buying cannabis. But spice is much more dangerous. It can cause psychosis, chest pains, seizures, extreme anxiety and suicidal thoughts, paralysis, vomiting and diarrhoea. And it can kill. Indeed this horror chemical was implicated in almost half the unnatural deaths of prisoners in UK jails between 2015 and 2020.
Alison’s shocking experience is more widespread than most parents realise. In a study published this week by the University of Bath, 596 vapes confiscated from schools in England were tested. They found that 16.6 per cent contained spice.
As the summer holidays begin and children and teenagers spend more time unsupervised with their friends, Prof Chris Pudney, who conducted the research, warns parents not to be complacent.
“This is not just a niche, one-off occurrence that happens in a school far away from you; this is something common,” he says. He is so alarmed about the growing problem that he has called on the Government to make it a national harm reduction priority.
Earlier this year parents in London were warned in a letter from police officers that vapes containing drugs were being distributed via social media apps including Snapchat.
“Inhaling spice through a vaping pen is particularly hazardous for young people,” the letter cautions. “In some instances, a single dose can prove fatal.”
It followed an incident at a school in Eltham, south-east London in which several children were hospitalised after using a vape that was later found to contain spice. One of the victims was left in a coma.
The Public Health Agency (PHA) has also highlighted the dangers of spice laced vapes. It advises anyone who has taken drugs and is feeling unwell, or their guardians to seek medical help urgently.
Michael Owen, the drugs and alcohol lead at the PHA, says: “For young people the risk of misusing substances is particularly dangerous. The teenage years are vital to healthy cognitive function as an adult, so it is important to maintain healthy behaviour during these years. Drug abuse can impact the brain’s ability to function in the short-term as well as prevent proper growth and development for later in life.
“Substance abuse affects teenagers’ brain development by interfering with neurotransmitters and damaging connections within the brain, creating problems with memory and emotional development, causing missed opportunities during a period of heightened learning potential, ingraining expectations of unhealthy habits into brain circuitry, and reducing the ability to experience pleasure.”
Alison was so concerned by her son’s experience that he is now regularly tested for drugs and receives counselling.
“I acted straight away because of the intensity of the outcome and the fact that he was doing it in his room on his own. It wasn’t a social thing,” she says.
Spice is not a single compound, but the name given to a diverse group of drugs called synthetic cannabinoid receptor agonists (or SCRAs). These lab-made chemicals were first developed by pharma companies in the Seventies as potential therapeutics. But they were shelved because they made test subjects unwell.
Using patents in the public domain, illicit drug makers then started to manufacture them and, because they were easy to transport and did not show up on regular drug tests, they became popular in prisons. Today it is thought they are largely made by clandestine labs in China and India. And as the manufacturing process has been tweaked and changed over time, they have become more unpredictable and harmful.
Spice is commonly sprayed on dried plants and smoked and can also be mixed with vaping liquids.
David Nutt is a professor of neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College, London.
“These are chemically produced drugs initially designed to mimic THC but they’re much worse than THC,” he explains. “They are more powerful and were originally too toxic and unpleasant for humans. When they found their way into prisons, all hell broke out. People became very ill and often had heart attacks or seizures because the spice molecules that are used today are probably the only drugs in history that are being used by humans with no testing on animals.”
He adds that the spice being sold to children and teenagers today will be dangerously toxic.
“Originally SCRAs worked in a similar way to cannabis. But now we don’t really know what they do. We’ve had this accumulating poisoning of SCRAs. Each time they are banned, they are reformulated. The types used today are classed as ‘third generation’. We don’t even know if they work in the same way as cannabis anymore. It seems they may not because cannabis doesn’t cause people to have seizures. They’re just molecules that people make and sell.”
Under UK law it is illegal to sell nicotine vaping products to under 18s. Cannabis is a class B drug, making it illegal to possess, supply, or produce. Synthetic cannabis such as spice is also classified as a class B drug.
Alison advises parents to be vigilant.
“Parents need to be much stricter with their children. Talk to them but if you’re still suspicious, then search their pockets, search their rooms,” she says. “Be rigorous. Don’t be afraid to take a hard line because that’s the only way to protect your child.”
She says the signs to look out for are sweet smells, which come from the flavours added to vapes, children spending a lot of time alone in their rooms and changes in behaviour and pallor.
She also warns against complacency.
“Children at the school I work in have been caught vaping in the toilets and it is a common problem. The two main problems are screens and vapes. Both are profoundly sabotaging teenage lives,” she says.
The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) advises parents to have brief, open and relaxed conversations with their children if they suspect they may be using drugs.
“You could try using cues such as drug issues happening on TV, in the media or personal, social and health education (PSHE) projects at school to start a conversation,” it says.
“Try to stay calm. It can be upsetting to find out your child is taking drugs, but getting angry and shouting may stop them from speaking to you in the future. Talking to them calmly and when you’re both relaxed will encourage them to be open about their actions and stop them from becoming secretive.”
*Name has been changed