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A CORONER is warning heroin users that they are killing themselves by mixing drugs and drink.

West Dorset Coroner Michael Johnston said a spate of deaths highlighted the fatal effect that heroin and alcohol had when taken together at levels that would not be lethal on their own.

The toxins were even worse for anyone suffering from a chest infection.

He said he had dealt with five deaths this year alone involving heroin and alcohol together and warned that other deaths currently being investigated were expected to show the same deadly combination.

Mr Johnston issued his warning at the inquest in Dorchester on the death of Christopher Edwin Saye, 22, who died at his Portland bedsit in January.

He recorded a verdict of accidental death caused by using heroin and alcohol while suffering from a chest infection.

Earlier he had heard from friends living at other bedsits at Mr Saye's Reforne address that the former salesman had drunk eight cans of lager, had a meal and then announced that he had obtained heroin.

The friends looked in on him later that evening and found him slumped on the floor, making snoring noises and purple in the face.

They had put him in a recovery position and sat with him.

They later realised he had stopped breathing and called an ambulance but Mr Saye died in spite of resuscitation efforts first by two police officers and then by the ambulance crew.

Mr Johnston said the level of alcohol was 92mg per 100ml of blood - the driving limit is 80mg. That level and the amount of heroin involved would not necessarily have been fatal.

But Mr Saye had been suffering from a chest infection and the cause of his death was found by a pathologist to be pulmonary oedema - where the lungs fill with fluid - and bronchial pneumonia.

Mr Johnston said: "Both heroin and alcohol affect the central nervous system and suppress the respiratory system. This is made worse when the heart and lungs are compromised by a chest infection.

"This has been the case in five deaths I have dealt with this year and that is a much higher rate of incidents than we would expect.

"Weymouth and Portland is a smallish area and that number is worrying.

"I want people to know about the risks they are taking when heroin and alcohol are involved.

"I'm not preaching about whether they should or should not use heroin - I just don't want young people dying when it is not necessary. And it is not necessary with the levels of heroin involved in these deaths."

Mr Johnston said heroin-users who finished with the drug were at risk if they lapsed and started using it again.

He said: "When a person has been through rehab their tolerance has gone. Some of these people will not be able to stay clean and if they use it at the same level they had previously been using it could kill them.

"I believe this is not made clear to them during rehab and I want that message to get across as well before other people die needlessly."

10:03am Friday 28th March 2008

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