'TOO PURE' HEROIN CLAIMS 14 LIVES

Abnormally pure batches of heroin circulating in two cities have claimed 14
victims in two months, police revealed yesterday.

Two men in Bristol have died after injecting the drug in the past two days,
bringing the number of deaths from heroin in the city since the start of
February to 10. In Manchester four people have overdosed in less than three
weeks.

Yesterday, police warned users to reduce their normal intake after post
mortem examinations and toxicology reports revealed morphine levels in the
dead men were at least twice the usual fatal overdose amount.

Inspector Tony Oliver, head of Avon and Somerset police's support unit,
said: 'We would urge users to use less than they might usually to cut the
risk of accidentally overdosing.'

He added: 'We haven't traced the source of the drug yet but it appears to
be an unusually pure batch of heroin.'

Police believe the heroin, which they fear is still circulating in
considerable quantities in the city, may be exceptionally pure because a
tier of the drug-dealing chain had been missed. 'The heroin may not have
been cut [mixed with impurities] so is not the strength it normally is at
street level,' Inspector Oliver said.

In Manchester officers believe an inexperienced dealer - unaware of the
drug's strength - may be to blame.

Sergeant Pete Johnson, of Manchester police, said: 'The most likely reason
is somebody has just started dealing and they are inexperienced in cutting
it down to the right level. They are pressured into supplying by their own
use - it cuts the cost of their own habit to supply it to all their friends.'

The latest victim died in the St Paul's, Bristol, on Thursday hours after
another man, believed to be in his twenties, collapsed in the toilets of a
shopping centre after injecting himself with the heroin.

The spate of deaths began on February 5, when an ex-soldier, Andrew
Beacock, aged 29, died at the Salvation Army hostel in the St Jude's area
of Bristol.

Two other addicts have since died at the hostel after injecting heroin from
the same batch. A further five have died since then.