HAZARDOUS chemicals being sold as legal highs are just a few mouse clicks away, despite being linked to a wave of health problems in Swindon.

Websites are renaming and altering the composition of products to dodge new laws – but are still selling substances which are illegal, the Adver has found.

The town is one of the worst spots in the country for problems related to legal highs, according to information collected by national health agencies. Great Western Hospital has registered a surge in admissions since August, while anecdotal evidence suggests the craze has claimed several lives.

A crackdown on legal highs in 2010 included mephedrone, dubbed meow meow, being added to the controlled substances list. But dealers responded by simply tweaking formulas.

The Adver ordered three chemicals from a website called Wide Mouth Frogs, which turned out to include a Class B substance banned under the new law.

Laboratory analysis of the product, called Jolly Green Granules, found it contained 4-methylethcathinone (4-MEC), which is in the same drug class as mephedrone.

The website also supplied MPA, known as Slush Eric, which has led to admissions to GWH for anxiety, paranoia and vomiting. The final substance was MXE, a form of the drug ketamine linked by Leicestershire police to the deaths of two clubbers earlier this year. Yet such substances were almost unheard of at GWH until a case on August 8.

Dr Charlotte Kelly, an A&E consultant at the hospital, said: “Before August we didn’t know anything about these substances and since then the numbers have just rocketed. Ideally they should all be banned, because then the use wouldn’t be as widespread.

“The problem is the compounds are changing so frequently the authorities are always one step behind and I suspect this is something we’re now going to be playing catch up with.”

Most of the admissions to GWH are for hard drug users who inject substances. No clear reason exist as to why the problem escalated from August, but anecdotal evidence suggests as few as two dealers in the town are thought to have started selling to hard drug addicts after ordering supplies from online dealers in China.

The profits are said to be higher than for the equivalent amounts of cocaine or heroin. Between August to the middle of January 20 people attended A&E a total of 45 times, with the worst cases requiring treatment in intensive care.

Dr Kelly said: “For us that’s a huge leap. Up until Christmas I assumed this was nationwide until the Health Protection Agency rang me and then it became quite apparent what is happening here.

“Although these substances are easy to get over the internet our big problem is intravenous drug users. We are talking about people who used to use heroin or crack and are now using legal highs because they’re cheaper. We have seen a few of what I would call middle class student-type people, but it’s the other group that’s been a big problem for us.”

Symptoms range from abnormal body movements, which has included patients unable to stop themselves jerking and thrashing around, through to renal failure.

“We try and stop the abnormal movements but that means we have to give them quite a lot of sedation, basically to paralyse them and put them to sleep,” said Dr Kelly.

“We then ventilate them in intensive care and wake them up.”

Aside from hardened users, Dr Kelly said there were ‘huge implications’ for people tempted to experiment with legal highs, which could turn out to be dangerous and unlawful.

“My simple advice for anyone tempted to use these websites is don’t,” she said. “With heroin and cocaine there was always the chance they could be cut with something which caused problems, but at least you knew what you were getting. With this lot, you don’t have a clue. “ Last week the hospital registered its first case of mephedrone replacement Eric 4 – after witnessing the side effects of 1, 2 and 3. The stimulant is thought to be legal but the formula is regularly tweaked, apparently by a Chinese man the drug is named after.

“If you imagine a base chemical compound there are then lots of rings which can be added,” said Dr Kelly. “They are like an evolving, evolutionary thing. As fast as you ban one substance another bit is attached and it becomes something else.”

Richard Palusinski, head of Swindon Community Safety Partnership, warned that people were dying as a result of using legal highs. He has also seen official figures showing Swindon has become a national hot-spot.

“In terms of why the spike, that is something I would love to have an answer to,” he said.

“As far as we can see it is a local problem. There is a poisons register in Liverpool which records all the people who harm themselves through legal highs, which is classed as self-poisoning.

“We have the highest rate outside of London. Some of that may be because GWH are particularly good at identifying them whereas other areas put them down as class A drugs or an unknown cause. But I don’t want to pretend this isn’t happening, as people are dying of this stuff and we can’t turn our backs on it, we’ve got to deal with it.”

Mr Palusinski has consulted drug treatment services in Swindon. He said: “The feeling amongst the drug-using community is that this stuff is cheaper than illegal narcotics, it gives you a bigger buzz, it lasts longer and if the old bill catch you with it in your pocket, you’re not going to get knocked off for it. We have had stories, though I can’t guarantee their provenance, of people saying the stuff is brilliant because it’s got them off crack. But it can’t be that brilliant if it’s going to kill you.”

The community safety team has long suspected that some of the highs offered over the counter or online contain banned substances. “We have had this fear that a number of them contain either Class A or Class B substances,” Mr Palusinski said. “They were some being sold over the counter in town but were never tied down as containing illicit narcotics. So it’s very interesting to hear about what the Adver has discovered on the internet.”

A campaign is now underway to combat the misuse of chemicals normally used for research purposes or as plant feed.

Mr Palusinski said: “We are sending messages out to the top end of secondary schools. If you remember back 15 to 20 years ago with the way glue sniffing disappeared, this is what needs to happen with this. We need to turn this around and it has to be an educational process. At the same time we are lobbying the two Swindon MPs to make representations to ban the substances which are still legal.

“We are also producing information pamphlets to go out through the drug treatment services to tell users what the effects can be.

“The message is that while they may feel good about it in the short term, in the long term this may be leading you to a wooden box.”