Tests on drugs as five users taken to hospital

Police were called to a property in Wentworth Road, Grimsby, at 4.35pm on Sunday after all five occupants, three men and two women, were admitted to hospital after taking a white powder.

They were taken to Diana, Princess of Wales Hospital in Grimsby and two of the men, aged 33 and 31, are still being treated.

An investigation is now under way.

Quentin Dowse, strategic development manager at the local drug and alcohol action team, said: “The only way to stay safe is not to use recreational drugs at all; whether they are legal or illegal does not mean safe.

“If you don’t know what is in the substance that you are taking, there is no way to predict its effects.

“There may be no ‘high’ as the substance may contain a depressant or a hallucinogen. The people selling these drugs often don’t know, or care, what is in them. The fact that they might be advertised or packaged professionally means nothing.

“Just because someone you know was okay using it doesn’t mean you will be, or even that it’s the same thing they took.

“What has happened to these five people only serves to prove how dangerous taking drugs of any type is and how the changing face of the recreational drug market is exposing users to new risks we as yet know little about.

“The only way to stay safe is not to use.”

The women, aged 23 and 24, and the other man, aged 28, were arrested and interviewed before being released on bail.

A spokeswoman for Humberside Police said: “It is not yet known just what the five people had taken so it would not be right to speculate at this time. However, we are awaiting the results of toxicology tests which should help to shed some light on just what was in the white powder which caused such serious health problems.”