Coroner warns drugs are as 'cheap as chips' after immigration officer dies snorting £5 amphetamine

A coroner has warned that potentially fatal drugs are now 'as cheap as chips' after hearing how a young professional collapsed and died at the end of a night out.

Immigration worker Jonathon McGrath, 32, was snorting amphetamines with friends at their city centre flat when he suffered heart failure.

After hearing how the group - one of whom worked as a solicitor - had used it to round off their night out, coroner Nigel Meadows warned that the falling price of 'recreational' drugs would inevitably lead to more deaths.

'I know how cheap drugs are,' he said. 'You can get a bag of speed for £10 to £15.

'It's as cheap as chips. You can buy Ecstasy tablets for a few quid.'

'If you can get drugs for the price of a round of drinks people, particularly younger people, will want to try them while ignorant of the dangers.'

Mr McGrath had been on a night out in Manchester with close friend Paul Davison a solicitor, and another couple, NHS worker Terry Davis, 39, and his 31-year-old partner Joanne.

After leaving a nightclub in the early hours of October 20 last year, they went back to the Davis’s flat.

They used a rolled-up £5 note to snort amphetamines, or speed, which Mr McGrath had bought earlier.

The trio told an inquest into his death that they had been dancing around the living room and failed to notice Mr McGrath had been in the lavatory for up to an hour.

They called an ambulance but doctors were unable to save him.

All three were later arrested on suspicion of possessing a class A drug and later given police cautions. continues here

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