A LEGAL high linked to at least nine deaths in Europe and on sale in Scotland for as little as £10 a time must be banned, politicians said yesterday.
The drug, called Krypton, is made using the deadly combination of a narcotic Asian plant called kratom and a powerful medical painkiller.
It is completely legal and widely available on the Internet, as well as from at least one “head shop” in Scotland.
But authorities in Sweden have linked Krypton to the deaths of nine young people in the last year and are set to make it illegal in that country.
Gisela Classon, of the Swedish National Board of Forensic Medicine, yesterday urged the Scottish Government to investigate if there have been any fatalities here, adding: “I would be rather surprised if there weren’t any since this drug is globally available.”
Ms Classon was one of a group of Scandinavian physicians who have just published a paper exposing the dangers of Krypton.
She said: “As we wrote in our paper, nine young people died in Sweden from October 2009 to October 2010.
“All died before arriving at hospital of intoxication of O-desmethyltramadol (a lab manufactured metabolite of tramadol and more potent than its ‘mother drug’) and mitragynin (the active substance in kratom).”
The high potency of the drug leads to a high risk of respiratory paralysis, especially among youngsters.
Ms Classon’s colleague Björn Bäckström added: “Krypton reminds me of other opiates such as morphine. It is not some sort of party drug.”