Manchester has become Britain's Spice capital, with junkies colonising whole swathes of the city and harassing tourists in the parks... but locals want to know: where are the police?
IT’S a blisteringly hot afternoon at the start of the school holidays – but for the dead-eyed Spice users in Manchester city centre, it’s groundhog day.
They cluster like living ghosts outside McDonald’s at the heart of the shopping district, buying and taking the drug, arguing and occasionally fighting, slumped in filthy phone boxes, on benches and on the ground.
I've come to Manchester because it's the epicentre of the country's Spice crisis, where dealers are selling a particularly potent strain of the synthetic cannabis.
Drug tourists are being lured in their droves, with users embarking on a 'Spice Trail' around Manchester's most beautiful landmarks.
In the space of five hours last Monday, I saw plastic bags containing drugs sold to 11 people in broad daylight on Manchester’s busiest shopping street. In that same period, I didn’t see a single police officer.
Since Spice, once a legal high, was made illegal in 2016, its miserable hold on vulnerable people such as street sleepers and prisoners has not weakened up and down the country. At less than £5 a gram - enough for a few hours’ fix - it’s cheap and accessible.
The "zombie drug", so-called because users often stagger around looking like the living dead, is a particular problem in Manchester and police here say they’ve received 1,300 calls relating to the drug in 18 months.
And earlier in the summer, visitors to Piccadilly Gardens - a hugely popular main square in the city centre - were appalled to see a couple, allegedly high on Spice, having sex in broad daylight.
The charity Lifeshare estimates that 95 per cent of Manchester’s homeless people take the drug and several users have been hospitalised after taking it.
It is highly addictive, with withdrawal symptoms said to be worse than coming off crack or heroin. Users can suffer vomiting, seizures, hallucinations and psychosis.
Stocks of the drug are believed to flood into the country through Eastern Europe, having come initially from China.
Particularly strong strains are being sold in Manchester compared to elsewhere, which is why spice addicts flock to the city on the 'Spice Trail', named-so to mimic the historic East-West trade of spices.
And the scale of the problem is much in evidence on an ordinary Monday in the city centre.
Yards away, just beyond the stench of urine and the sight of Spice being smoked openly on the grass by an emaciated homeless woman with a baby in a buggy, excited children are playing in the fountains.
The Spice-smoking mother, no older than 16, has one hand on the pram and a roll-up in the other as she chats and giggles with a toothless man in shorts and nothing else.
It’s shocking that illegal drug users are staggering, hallucinating and catatonic so close to innocent kids playing, according to worried mum Angela, 37, from nearby Ancoats.
“Where are the police?" Angela asks. Two of her children are running together through the fountains, while her third is in her arms.
"I bring my three small kids here – they’re seven, five and nine months - for a nice day out, only to see Spice users being sick everywhere, running through the fountains all Spiced-up so I have to take the kids away until they’re gone away.
“My three are terrified of them. It makes me not want to bring them here. There should be a restriction so the Spice guys can’t come here where the kids are.”
Spice user Jed who’s sitting on the steps beneath the Queen Victoria monument, sees it differently.
“I’ve got nothing, absolutely nothing, and nowhere to go," he says. "I’ve as much right to be here as anyone else.
"Yes I take Spice, but who wouldn’t if they were living my life? It makes me feel good, it puts me to sleep, it blocks stuff out. It passes the time, and I have a lot of that.”
He’s been living on the streets for 20 years, since he was 16, after a chaotic childhood with alcoholic parents and siblings.
He looks 20 years older than he is: craggy, pallid and caked in dirt. Most of his teeth are missing and his jogging bottoms smell of urine.
He says he started taking Spice when he was in prison for burglary and assault a year ago.
“All I own in this world is a sleeping bag, I sleep wherever, usually in shop doorways where the CCTV cameras are. I’ve got four kids so if anything happens to me, the camera won’t lie.
"I smoke an ounce of Spice a day. That costs me £40. I go nicking to get the money I need. I do some shoplifting.”
Jed talks freely for a while but starts scratching himself manically and becomes aggressive, eventually storming off for no apparent reason.
Hours later, I see him slumped unconscious on one of the benches opposite McDonald’s.
The buyers and sellers of Spice clutter a pavement where customers, often oblivious, are in and out of Debenhams, Halifax, Starbucks and Morrisons.
They congregate round the two monuments in the gardens: a strutting dealer aged around 30, dressed head-to-toe in Adidas, a giggling guy in his 20s dancing with his jeans pulled down below his bottom; an angry blonde 30-something woman shouting odds at a woman of the same age, slumped double beside a stained duvet.
It’s hardly the ideal lunch break setting for people working close by, as three 19-year-old college students explain.
“We’ve just had to move away from the monument over there because of the zombies lying round us and the dealers shouting out,” Jess says.
“A big, topless, wasted guy was hassling us for money, so we thought it would be safer to move to where all the kids and their parents are. Not nice. We all felt intimidated over there.”
A young couple, Grace and Matthew, who have just finished school, say that they often see people asking for money outside McDonald's.
A middle-aged woman, Alison, from the Channel Islands, says: “This is my first time in Manchester for 20 years and I’m shocked by what I’m seeing.
"It’s like watching a horrible documentary about drug taking, but it’s real life and it’s happening 10ft from where I’m sitting on a bench waiting for my daughter to finish a college interview.
“I’m angry that there are no police here, and sad for the mess these poor people have got themselves into. What a waste of their lives.”
For the many shops and eateries bordering Piccadilly Gardens, Spice is bad for business. Spaced-out druggies, often aggressive, sometimes hallucinating, are off-putting.
Lucas, the supervisor in a nearby restaurant, says: “They come in here wanting to use the toilet. One guy came in totally wasted on Spice and fell on the floor in the restaurant and started shaking.
"We called an ambulance, but when it came he just stood up and walked out.
“The Deliveroo and Just Eat drivers don’t want to come here because they can get their bikes stolen when they’re picking up food. Some customers tell us they won’t come into the city centre after 5pm.”
A security guard standing outside a café says: “Spice is a massive problem here and it’s a shame that a park that’s at the heart of Manchester is ruined by users.
"I know the police use Dispersal Orders but that only tends to get rid of them for 48 hours, then they’re straight back.”
A store security guard who didn’t want to be named described the Spice problem as a "nightmare" which fuels shoplifting and puts customers off shopping.
“You think someone is dead, they’re so out of their head, but five minutes later you see them begging on the McDonald’s wall, and so it goes on, day after day. Very troubling.”
The manager at a hairdressing salon on Tib Street says he’s concerned about the fire hazard caused by street sleepers bedding down in shop doorways with carrier bags, sleeping bags and duvets.
Last year the evening newspaper here described Piccadilly Gardens as "a dystopian scene of seemingly unending human misery."
An impassioned article continued: “This has not happened overnight. That human beings are rotting away in our busiest public square has been evident for a long time. It is a sight that should shame Manchester.”
Superintendent Chris Hill, GMP’s commander for the city centre, says:
“Tackling spice use and dealing in the city centre is still a high priority for us and we continue to work with our partners to help people get the support that they need and ultimately get this harmful drug off our streets.
“Enforcement action has seen us tackle dealers and use intelligence to target organised crime gangs across Greater Manchester - 55 people have been arrested for possession with intent to supply spice since January 2017 in the city centre alone.
In addition to this we have also arrested 90 others for being in possession of the drug, with many of these people directed to support services.
“It’s crucial that we continue to work with partners, including Manchester City Council’s Antisocial Behaviour Action Team, the CPS and the courts to take dealers off the streets but also with health and support services to refer users to that they can get the help that they need and ultimately help us tackle the issue.
“We remain committed to working together to keep Manchester safe for everyone, but we do need the continued support of the community in reporting suspicious incidents through 101, or 999 in an emergency.”
Big Issue seller Charlie, 46, is sitting with his dog Monty outside the H&M store on Market Street. Charlie has been homeless, on and off, since he was 13, though he recently qualified as a plasterer and now has a flat in Stockport.
He says: “I’ve never touched Spice, it’s an idiot’s game, but the problem here in Manchester hasn’t happened overnight – the authorities are just ignoring it.
“Spice is giving Manchester a dreadful name. It needs sorting out. That horrible corner of Piccadilly Gardens is like Skid Row.”
Back there, Spice business remains brisk. On the hottest afternoon of the year, a woman is comatose in a phone box underneath a duvet.
There’s a loud argument going on between two shouting women, both of them emaciated, and four men are unconscious on benches.
It’s as depressing a snapshot of life on the streets in 21st century Britain as one could see.
