BBC 3 Drugs Map of Britain under fire over 'negative' legal highs documentary on Wolverhampton
'Look, wherever you go in Wolverhampton, you can get it if you need it.' A new BBC documentary has portrayed the city in the grip of a 'Black Mamba' drug epidemic troubled by street dealing, fighting and antisocial behaviour.
But the Wolverhampton: Getting Off Mamba programme, part of a new Drugs Map of Britain series has been slammed by a former mayor.
Councillor Milkinder Jaspal said: "Unfortunately, negativity sells and recently there have been a lot of surveys and television programmes that seem intent on bringing Wolverhampton down.
"There are problems in Wolverhampton with drugs and homelessness, but these issues exist in every town and city in Britain
"It could be anywhere but they have picked Wolverhampton. The people who make these programmes are usually outsiders who have little or no concern for how well the city is doing.
"They only want to highlight problems without looking at solutions."
Film maker Suemay Oram followed Liam for three months and in first part of the series she reveals how easy it is to buy the substance – a synthetic version of cannabis, often sold in smoking mixtures.
The documentary shows how there are four or five outlets selling the substance in the city centre alone.
Sachets of the drug can be purchased for as little as £15 for two packets, or £10 for one. On the rear of the packet it states 'harmful if inhaled. Can cause skin irritation. Not fit for human consumption.'
Smoking outside of Darlington Street Methodist Church where groups of homeless people attend three times a week for a hot meal, Liam's friend 'Parkes' explains.
"Kids as young as twelve are smoking it and smoking it heavy. God knows what it's going to be like in ten year's time," he says.
One of the volunteers at the church said: "Legal highs are around. We see people rolling up outside the church. A number of people have had to be taken to hospital by ambulance."
Liam, who was addicted to the substance but is no longer using, tells the documentary he got up every two to three hours for a smoke. "I may as well be like a bat, staying awake, not going to sleep and that's why I get stressed and depressed."
A homeless woman who was once addicted to heroin said: "Mamba is the worst drug out. It's worse than class A. I've been off it for three days and I've had sweats, vomiting. It needs to be taken off the market before people end up dead."
Colin Watkins, head of communications at BBC3, said: "Drugs Map of Britain is covering a lot of cities. It wasn't like Wolverhampton was pulled out specifically, it's across the whole of the UK. We went to local service providers and asked them to talk about the issues that were most prevalent in those areas, the Midlands and Wolverhampton pulled out Black Mamba.
"Wolverhampton is first in the run because new legal high legislation was supposed to be brought into use this week."
He added that the word 'epidemic' was a term which had been referred to by one of the contributors in the documentary and not the BBC3 team.
Sunny Dhadley, drug service user involvement officer from support group SUIT Wolverhampton, which featured in the documentary, said: "It wasn't reflective of the problem of legal highs in our city.
"There is not an epidemic, that would be way too strong a word.
"The positive thing to come out of the documentary is that since it was on, we've had five or six people come to us either seeking help or wanting to know how they can go about helping others."
The documentary follows the recent announcement that a law to make Black Mamba, among other substances, illegal has been put back. It was due to come into force today with the delay blamed on the current definition of a psychoactive substance not being robust enough to be enforced.
Superintendent Keith Fraser, of Wolverhampton Police, said: "We are working to keep people safe from these so-called 'legal highs'.
"Although these products are not currently banned under criminal law, they can cause significant risk. Anyone who takes these substances is gambling with their lives. I would say Wolverhampton is no worse than anywhere else, but it is a challenge here and we are working on it."
