‘A ticking time bomb’: Grieving mother’s warning over deadly Chinese opioid epidemic

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When Claire Rocha received the results of her son Dylan’s post-mortem, she had never heard of isotonitazene – the potent synthetic opioid which prematurely claimed his life.

At up to 500 times stronger than morphine, even the most minute doses can prove fatal.

But Dylan, 21, had no idea the heroin he had received through the post was laced with the deadly substance when he relapsed after battling a drug problem linked to his depression.

The talented musician’s sudden death in July 2021 is thought to be among the first fatalities in Britain caused by the substance – part of a dangerous family of Chinese synthetic opioids called nitazenes.

Now his grieving mother has issued a stark warning about the dangers of the drugs which are flooding Britain’s supplies – claiming lives of unwitting users after being detected in heroin, counterfeit prescription drugs sold as Xanax and even in some illicit vapes.

The Independent last month revealed nitazenes had been linked to an average of 6.8 lives each week in recent months as fatalities soar, with 176 lives lost in less than a year.

As she prepares to mark three years since Dylan’s death, Ms Rocha, 50, from Southampton, revealed she fears Britain is facing a US-style drug deaths epidemic if the nation does not wake up to the rapidly unfolding crisis.

“Dylan has that dubious claim to fame of being one of the first to die in England,” she told The Independent.

“But now we are three years on and we have one person a day dying. It’s scary. And I think it’s probably only the tip of the iceberg.”

The mother described Dylan, the eldest of her two sons, as a “a bit of a character” – witty, popular and “lots of fun”.

She said the music lover was “really unique”, adding: “I know every mum says that but he really was. He had box-died black hair and wore stuff from charity shops. He loved his leather trousers, rolled up jeans and DMs. He loved his music.”

But he also had his dark moments and was diagnosed with depression in his late teens, with the mum recalling times when he would lock himself in his room for days on end.

It was during the Covid-19 lockdown, she fears, that he began using drugs in secret.

“I think he found that street drugs had an instant effect to make him feel better,” she explained.

In 2020 he went to a rehab facility after he she came home to find being treated by paramedics. His recovery was successful and he left feeling upbeat and making plans for the future – including a tour with his band Happy2000.

However the mother’s world came crashing down the following year when she was awoken by a panicked call from Dylan’s girlfriend, who had found him collapsed in the bathroom of their shared flat.

“I just got a phone call at about 5am on the 24 July with his girlfriend saying, ‘I found Dylan unresponsive and the paramedics are here and it doesn’t look great,’” she said.

“By the time I got there the paramedics said, ‘I’m sorry – he’s gone.’”

The family had never heard of nitazenes when they were detected in Dylan’s post-mortem examination and assumed it was something which was cut into heroin, which he had bought on the dark web and was delivered in the post.

It’s only in the last year, as the full picture of the emerging threat from nitazenes hit headlines, that she has managed to put all the pieces of his tragic death together.

Now she is determined to raise awareness about the drugs to save other families from the same heartache.

“Dylan died having taken heroin but it can be cut into everything,” she said. “Middle-aged people who go to a party night might take some cocaine but it could be cut into that and that could be game over.

“Looking at the rising number of deaths from it… what are they doing? Where’s the warnings? I want everyone to know about this. There’s a thing, it’s in the country and it’s getting into the country and it’s really dangerous.

“I think this could explode if the education isn’t out there. It is a ticking time bomb really.”

The mother, who celebrates Dylan’s life each year with a grassroots music festival, said, “Nothing prepares you for losing a child,” while her youngest son, then 16, has been forced to grow up without his older brother. 

“Now he’s got to grow up as an only child. I’m just a one child family now and half my family has disappeared, they have just gone,” she said. “All I have got now is his ashes.

“I have to live the rest of my life without him. All I can do is try to make other people’s lives better and raise awareness to prevent other people from having to go through this.”

Drug experts have issued repeated warnings about the growing threat from nitazenes. Cheap to ship from China with similar effects to heroin, the substances are flooding the UK drugs market amid constraints hitting traditional heroin supplies after the Taliban banned opium poppy production in Afghanistan.

Worryingly, the powerful drugs have been detected in a range of substances including heroin, cocaine and counterfeit prescription anxiety medication sold as Xanax and Valium.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) has linked at least 106 deaths in England, 21 in Wales, 47 in Scotland and two in Northern Ireland to the drug since last June.

The government has launched a taskforce to respond to the threat from synthetic opioids with the NCA, Home Office, healthcare officials and police. In March, 15 synthetic opioids, including isotonitazene and other nitazene compounds, were made Class A controlled substances.