A study into vapes confiscated in schools in England has found that some of them contained the synthetic drug spice, and that many of these dangerous vapes were easily acquired over social media.
The University of Bath examined vapes confiscated in 114 schools across England and found that in London and Lancashire as many as one in four vapes confiscated contained traces of spice.
Across the 1,923 vapes studied by the experts, a total of 13 percent contained spice, but in two regions of England that figure rose to 25 percent.
These vapes were often marketed on social media as 'THC' vapes, THC being the active ingredient in cannabis, with spice being cheaper and more dangerous. Only 1.2 percent of confiscated vapes were found to contain THC.
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A 15-year-old child called Ella told the BBC that she started vaping when she was 12 and after a few months of buying vapes from shops she and her friends started buying ones they thought contained THC.
She said they got their vape liquid from a drug dealer who operated via Snapchat and sold the spice-laced vapes for £10 a bottle or £20 for three.
The child said she and her friend Sophie got addicted to the spice-laced vape liquid, with their parents noticing their daughters became 'erratic' and have 'extreme moods', on one occasion the teenagers went missing for 36 hours.
Afterwards, their parents tried to keep them home and stop them from vaping, with 14-year-old Sophie describing the withdrawal symptoms she felt, telling the BBC the withdrawal made her feel 'sick, cold and shaky'.
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She said: "Your heart would start slowing down, then get really fast. Then you just sleep and your stomach hurts all the time and you can't eat."
Sophie's mother Dawn said this went on for a week until she was 'violently sick' and swore off vaping, while Ella's mum Sarah said her daughter got a wake-up call in the form of being hospitalised.
The mum said: "I literally said, 'I don't want to wake up in the morning, come to your bedroom and find you dead in your bed - or your sister finds you, or your brother'."
Dawn said the people making spice-laced vape liquid and selling them to children were 'absolute scum'.
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A BBC undercover reporter posing as a child was able to contact the person who sold Ella and Sophie vapes with spice, the dealer quickly responded and sold four of them which all tested positive for containing the synthetic drug.
Professor Chris Pudney of the University of Bath warned: "Spice e-liquids are trivially available on social media like TikTok and Instagram, with apparent drug dealing on these platforms.
"A simple search of social media platforms brings up hundreds of accounts selling this material, making them incredibly easy for young people to find.
"Spice is much cheaper than THC. Young people think they’re buying a cannabis product but instead they’re being pushed a highly addictive, cheap drug with unpredictable and serious health effects, such as psychosis, seizures and heart problems."
Spice is highly addictive and other users have compared the withdrawal symptoms to trying to drop a heroin addiction.
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Joe Harker