The Latest Breaking News from Caroline Copeland

Pink cocaine, apple-flavoured ketamine and triple-strength ecstasy: How festival drugs went supersonic

IN FOCUS: As festivals get underway across the country this bank holiday weekend, Lydia Spencer-Elliott speaks to toxicology experts about the rise of polydrug use, what’s really in these illicit substances and how they are being made ‘Instagram-ready’

The Independent UK · Aug 29

Synthetic opioid may have caused hundreds more deaths than recorded

Synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, methadone, and buprenorphine have been linked to 524 deaths in England since the end of September 2025

The Independent UK · Feb 9

Ketamine deaths up twenty-fold since 2014 as experts issue drug mixing warning

Family members of those who have died from taking the ‘horrific’ Class B are among those calling for it to be reclassified

The Independent UK · Sep 29, 2025

Is the UK sleepwalking into a lethal US-style opioid drugs crisis?

Warning that drugs so potent a ‘grain of sand’ dosage can be fatal could spark a US-style drug deaths crisis

The Independent UK · Dec 26, 2023

Warning flesh-eating zombie drug could be widespread in UK after first death

It has contributed to an epidemic of drug deaths in the US

Wales Online · May 25, 2023

‘Zombie drug’ could be widespread in UK, experts warn

Xylazine is a powerful sedative which has swept across the United States.

The Independent UK · May 24, 2023

Man, 43, is UK’s ‘first to die’ after taking sedative dubbed ‘zombie drug’

Xylazine lowers breathing and the heart rate – and causes large skin ulcers if injected.

The Independent UK · May 24, 2023