Police are hunting a Breaking Bad-style gang making ‘mind-altering’ monkey dust in a Stoke-on-Trent laboratory.
North Staffordshire has been in the grip of an ‘epidemic’ with police called to 950 incidents connected to the drug in just three months.
But the drug, which sells for just £2 a hit, is now spreading to Greater Manchester, the West Midlands, the Thames Valley and Gloucestershire.
It is believed a gang based in the Potteries has set up an operation to legally import the ingredients and then turn them into the drug, which can be injected, snorted or swallowed.
Now detectives at Staffordshire Police are trying to crack the network.
However, according to the Sunday Times, covert surveillance and informants have been unable to find gang members ‘beyond street dealing level’.
Assistant chief constable Jason Harwin, the national police leader on drugs, said big quantities of monkey dust were not being seized at the border.
He added: "This suggests they are either getting it into the UK via a means we don't yet know about or criminal gangs are learning how to make these drugs from scratch.”
A police briefing document tells officers how MDPHP can be created by mixing a chemical compound with pyrrolidine, a food additive which has a characteristic odour of shellfish which leavers users smelling like prawns.
It reads: "Someone could in theory import a package of [the compound] and then add the pyrrolidine group and make MDPHP from something not controlled."
Dr Oliver Sutcliffe of Manchester Metropolitan University, who tests drugs for the police, said: “It is not simply a case of mixing two chemicals together. It would need a laboratory.”
What is monkey dust? The drug causing a health crisis
Monkey Dust, also known as MDPV, causes hallucinations and paranoia.
People on the drug, which looks like an off-white powder, have been known to climb trees and buildings and attack people who come near them.
It's from a family of drugs known as cathinones as can be bought for as little as £2.
Monkey dust can be swallowed, injected or snorted and it dampens perceptions of pain. It can also cause powerful hallucinations which lead to severe paranoia.
The use of monkey dust is on the rise because of its low cost and its effects can be felt after ingesting small amounts - as little as 3mg.
While Staffordshire is a known epicentre for the drug, West Midlands Ambulance Service said it has dealt with cases across the region. Paramedics have been called to 178 incidents since April involving money dust — 131 of them in North Staffordshire.
Monkey dust – also known as MDPHP, zombie dust or cannibal dust – gives users the sense that they are ‘the Hulk’ with high energy levels, super-strength and an inability to feel pain.
It can also induce hypothermia by producing high body temperatures, with aggression and paranoid delusions common side effects.
There have even been reports of users climbing buildings and trees, running into traffic and attacking people who have approached them while under the influence.
In one shocking incident last September, a man high on monkey dust in petrol station on Waterloo Road, Cobridge, was found trying to put out a lit cigarette with a petrol pump.
Pete Burkinshaw, alcohol and drug treatment and recovery leader at Public Health England, said: “Drugs like these can cause immediate side effects, like heart problems, as well as long-term damage, such as psychosis and addiction.”
Staffordshire Police has been pursuing a 'partnership approach' and carrying out raids.
Chief Superintendent Jeff Moore, head of neighbourhood policing and partnerships, said: “The drug is highly addictive and highly unpredictable, meaning emergency services can often struggle to provide the appropriate treatment to those under the influence.
“Every user acts differently, displaying behaviour that is volatile and dangerous to both the user and emergency services personnel responding. The level of resource required is often far greater than we have experienced before with some suffering the effects of use for several days.
Stoke-on-Trent's monkey dust epidemic
"Working with our partners we must improve education and prevention efforts to stop people taking the drug in the first place, but we also need to identify more effective ways to treat those already under the influence.
"By starting this very public conversation we hope to work with partners to create a joined-up approach that will hopefully lower the number of people using the drug and tackle the production and supply of the drug."
Thousands of people have already signed a petition calling for Monkey Dust to be reclassified as a Class A drug.
The petition states: "Monkey Dust is causing so much trouble to services up and down the country and destroying the lives of many people. People who take this drug are ending up in Prisons, while others are harming themselves without been aware of their own personal injuries.
"The local and national media have reported a massive rise in the use of this drug and communities have been affected through crimes such as robberies."
The shocking court cases linked to monkey dust
Drugged-up Shaun Dunn-Sweeny threatened to burn down his flat and kill ‘pikeys’ if the police did not arrest him.
The 52-year-old - who was high on monkey dust - went to the Smithfield 1 Building in Hanley and told officers he believed he had been poisoned and there was a ‘hit out on his life’.
He threatened to set fire his flat if the officers did not lock him up and added he would get a gun and ‘kill all the pikeys around here’.
He was detained and police found a bottle containing petrol among his possessions.
Dunn-Sweeny, below, of New Inn Lane, Hanford, pleaded guilty to threatening to damage or destroy property and failing to surrender to bail.
He was handed a 10-month jail sentence, suspended for 18 months, following the incident at midnight on April 14.
Judge Dean Kershaw told the defendant: “You are an example of the scourge that the drug, sometimes referred to a monkey dust, is having on society. It is an extremely dangerous drug. It is causing real havoc. It has caused havoc on your life."
Fore more on this story, click here.
Monkey dust user Daniel Latham, below, threw a tin of paint on two pavements after threatening to buy petrol and burn down his flat and another building.
The 31-year-old attended the Hope Centre in Hanley in a paranoid state and claimed people were inside his flat and he wanted to go to the Harpfields Hospital.
He threatened to set fire to his home, the Hope Centre and vehicles.
A few hours later the defendant was seen by police carrying a large tub of paint which he threw on the ground.
Officers tried to help him but he threw the paint down again near the Smithfield Building in Hanley causing it to spill.
The offences placed him in breach of a suspended jail sentence he received last August for inflicting grievous bodily harm and a battery.
Latham, formerly of Linfield Road, Hanley, pleaded guilty to two offences of criminal damage, threatening to damage property and breaching a suspended sentence order.
He was handed a 12-month community order.
For more on this story, click here.
Drugged-up Dean Hulme was 'probably high on monkey dust' when he pulled a knife on a shopper and his seven-month-old baby in a terrifying confrontation outside a busy supermarket – at 9am in the morning.
The 27-year-old, below, stole the knife from Sainsbury’s, Stoke, before threatening his victim who feared for the life of his infant son in a shocking case of mistaken identity.
He was then pushed away before fleeing in the scene as he was chased by police.
The defendant – who was foaming from the mouth – only went to the floor after being threatened with a taser.
Hulme, of Frank Street, Stoke, pleaded guilty to affray, possession of a knife in public and failing to surrender to bail. He was jailed for 26 months.
For more on this story, click here.
Drugged-up Kevin Eagles ripped tiles off the roof of a block of flats and hurled the 'missiles' to the ground - during a six-and-a-half hour police stand-off.
The paranoid 34-year-old, below, climbed onto the roof of the three-storey building and endangered the safety of passers-by after a monkey dust binge left him wrongly believing the police were chasing and harassing him.
Damage was caused to the roof of the Aspire Housing-owned property, an unmarked police car and another vehicle during the incident which led to a section of Albemarle Road, in Cross Heath, being cordoned off.
Eagles, of Grove Street, Knutton - who has 34 previous convictions for 100 offences - pleaded guilty to affray and three offences of criminal damage and was jailed for 20 months.
For more on this story, click here.
Paranoid Peter Pointon attempted to seek refuge inside a police station because he thought a paedophile gang was after him - only to find the cop shop had closed down.
The 42-year-old then climbed onto the roof of Tunstall Police Station in a desperate attempt to get away from them.
He dislodged tiles which fell to the floor as he climbed onto the roof of the High Street station which closed down due to funding cuts three years ago.
Police rushed to the scene and the defendant immediately came down.
Drugged-up Pointon, below, told police he was under the influence of a substance he had smoked - either monkey dust of black mamba - and believed a paedophile gang was after him.
Pointon, of City Road, Fenton, pleaded guilty to causing criminal damage. He was handed a 12-month conditional discharge.
For more on this story, click here.
Want to tell us about something going on where you live? Let us know - Tweet us @SOTLive or message us on our Facebook page. And if you have pictures to share, tag us on Instagram at StokeonTrentLive.
