'Synthetic opioid was a death sentence for our dad'

Siblings Alex and Keeley regularly visit their dad's grave in a peaceful Essex cemetery to remove weeds and lay new flowers.

Although their father had been a drug and alcohol user for most of his adult life, they had both believed he was "on the up" with the help of a local treatment service.

But on 2 July 2023, they got a devastating call to say he had died from an overdose after he was found unresponsive at home.

They later learned the drugs taken included a new and highly toxic compound, one of several synthetic opioids called nitazenes, which are many times stronger than heroin.

Their father is one of 179 people in England recorded as having died from nitazenes in the past year, with the highest number of deaths occurring in the East of England.

Their dad's heroin addiction had meant there were periods when Alex and Keeley, who asked for their real names and their father's name to be withheld, had little contact with him.

Despite this, they both retain positive memories.

"He was extremely funny and would make light of any bad situation" said Keeley. "He was one in a million. You won't find anybody else like him again."

Alex speaks of his father's passion for Manchester United.

"I remember as a kid watching the football together," he said. "He absolutely loved it."

As adults they now recognise he had serious mental health problems and used drugs and alcohol as a means of escape.

With the support of the Essex-based service Open Road, their father had started a journey to recovery, reducing his drugs and alcohol consumption.

He had just turned 50, was in stable housing and, Alex thought, "things were starting to improve".

Keeley saw her dad less than a fortnight before his death and Alex spoke to him by phone the previous day.

"It's just weird to think we'll never get to speak to or see Dad again," Alex said, "or have a laugh and a joke with him."

What has complicated their grief is that the drugs he took had been mixed with a nitazene, a synthetic opioid that can be lethal even in small doses.

It is unlikely he would have known about this substance or the effect it would have.

An inquest found the former electrician died from multiple drug misuse including synthetic opioids.

The siblings had never heard of nitazenes before his death. When they started to research it, all they could find was "things that happened in America, not in England".

"Unfortunately because of the toxicity of the drugs, we [weren't] able to say a proper goodbye", said Keeley.

She was told if she wanted to see him she would "have to wear a mask and gloves".

"My dad was essentially treated as a crime scene," she said.

It also meant his body could not be embalmed, as the family had wanted.

The pair want to raise awareness of the risks these new substances pose.

Keeley said her father "was handed a death sentence as soon as he was sold [the drugs]".

"As soon as you're anywhere near that substance, it's lethal," she said.

Alex would like to see drug testing kits more readily available to drug users.

He said: "If [dad] knew there were some bad substances going around he would have been able to test and then he wouldn't have died as a result."

Nitazenes are a type of high strength synthetic opioid - drugs which have a similar effect to heroin, but made in laboratories rather than from poppy seeds.

Originally developed by the pharmaceutical industry in the 1950s as a painkiller, clinical trials were abandoned amid concerns about their harmful effects.

These compounds are dangerous because they can be 50 to 100 times stronger than heroin, so drug users have no idea of the potency of what they are taking.

The drugs supress the respiratory system, so people can die because they stop breathing, but the symptoms of an overdose can be reversed by taking an antidote called naloxone.

• If you have been affected by the issues in this story, help and support is available via the BBC Action Line

There were 179 deaths after taking nitazenes in England between June 2023 and 2024, according to data collected by the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities.

Earlier this year, the UK government amended the Misuse of Drugs Act and brought 14 nitazenes under the highest band of drug classification, Class A.

Guidance has been issued to councils on how to prepare for an increase in incidents linked to potent synthetic opioids.

The National Crime Agency believes nitazenes entering the UK market come from illicit labs in China.

A previous BBC investigation found such drugs were being advertised on the social media platform X and music streaming service SoundCloud.

Claire Beacham, regional manager for the Essex-based charity Open Road, has seen the rise of nitazenes first hand in recent months.

She said: "They’ve spread like wildfire really because opioids aren’t getting into Europe anymore, so people are making their own which is where the synthetics come in."

She said it was particularly "dangerous" and "frightening" because nitazenes were being mixed with a wide range of illicit drugs, not just heroin and other opioids.

"People are taking recreational drugs or party drugs and its contaminated with nitazenes, and there’s different types, but some are 100% stronger than street heroin," she said.

The charity gives out naloxone antidote kits and training on how to administer it to drug users, as well as their friends and family, night time venues and on the organisation's SOS buses.

Claire and her team work with local health bodies, the police, housing services and anyone in direct contact with drug users to pass on intelligence they receive about contaminated batches of drugs.

She said publicly available drug testing was needed to combat the problem, a move that would require "trust" and "breaking down barriers" to give drug users the confidence to come forward.

"There's never been a more dangerous time to take drugs", said Det Supt Gary Biddle, of Essex Police. "We simply do not know what they contain."

Synthetic opioids are having a "devastating effect" in the county, he said.

Despite the successes of police operations - such as Raptor and Orochi - to target county lines drug gangs, Det Supt Biddle said the issue of synthetic opioids was "just not something we can arrest our way out of".

Within three days of the death of Alex and Keeley's father, the contaminated batch involved was seized and four people involved in supplying him the drugs were arrested and charged.

All four admitted their role in supplying the drugs, and are due to be sentenced on 31st January 2025.

• For more on this story watch BBC Look East on BBC One at 19:30 on Monday.