Heroin and cocaine mix lethal cocktail

NEWCASTLE - Neal, a factory worker from Tyneside, cannot even remember how he got into the drug craze known as speedballing.

"I just heard a few people talking about it. Sometimes you just want what you haven't got, don't you?"

He dabbled for months with the practice, which involves injecting a "cooked" mix of heroin and cocaine, although he professes to have been clear of it this year.

Neal is by no means alone in the northeast. Speedballing - a craze fuelled in Newcastle by the availability of some of the cheapest heroin in Britain, much of it bought for just £5 ($14.50) for 0.2 grams 65km south in Middlesbrough - is on the rise.

Though the need to buy two drugs makes it relatively expensive, young men in their late teens and early 20s will club together for a £40 ($117) gram of cocaine and a £10 ($29) bag of heroin, to get a hit that they believe will surpass the effects of either drug individually.

The addicts include some of the polished city centre's new professional set, say drug workers, but the tragedies tend to emerge from the poorer districts where work is harder to find.

John Courtney, 21, was one. He died last year after an addiction which was costing him £90 ($263.50) a day.

The price of the drugs is driving the trends outlined by the charity Drugscope. In the 1980s, a gram of cocaine cost £80 ($234) and a gram of heroin £120 ($351) but they are half that price now and, for some, a fashion accessory, even though users complain the cocaine quality is poor.

"Sure, for some it's because there's no work and only the dole," says Neal. "But for some it's peer pressure - they want to do what their friends do."

A study last year by the National Treatment Association for England found 30 heroin users under the age of 13 in Newcastle.

But heroin and cocaine are only a part of the problem. Newcastle and Gateshead have also seen a rise in anabolic steroid abuse by young men who crave the ability to display a big body on a night out.

Steroids, once the preserve of serious bodybuilders, are now permeating many ordinary gyms where users will pay £3 ($9) for a score.

The northeast office of Lifelines Harm Minimisation Services said teenagers as young as 15 and 16 visited its steroid needle exchange.

"They just want a quick solution to appear fit and attractive, unaware of the health implications," says one drug worker.

Many young Asian men are also beginning courses of steroids, mirroring a severe problem that Birmingham is experiencing. The health effects range from high blood pressure to aggression.

"Some of them just want to put [muscle] on by sitting in the house and not doing anything," says Neal, who is a regular gym-goer.

- INDEPENDENT