Homeless blighted by 'legal high' Spice which sells for as little as £5 a gram

By ITV News Correspondent Damon Green

Since the ban on `legal highs' came into force last year, the emergency services in Manchester have recorded a drop in calls related to the drugs.

The `head shops' have all closed, and the heavy users who would cluster around them are no longer a problem to police.

But the trade in `legal highs' hasn't stopped. It has merely passed into the hands of professional drug dealers.

And with a stockpile of newly-banned drugs that they bought at a knockdown price, suddenly they have been able to flood the market with cheap psychoactive drugs - drugs known universally as `Spice'.

The customers are no longer the students, hipsters,office workers and partygoers who frequented the head shops. They are Manchester's homeless.

And for just a few pounds, begged on the streets of the city centre, they can suddenly afford to smoke themselves into oblivion.

In the last few weeks charity workers have noticed a sudden spike in the numbers of homeless admitted to hospital, suffering the effects of an apparent overdose.

They blame a new and powerful batch of Spice which has suddenly appeared, selling for as little as £5 for a gram.

During the daytime, users can be seen, swaying and barely conscious, or slumped and comatose in the street.

And every evening, the blue lights of ambulances light the streets as case after case is taken to hospital.

Today scientists at the city's Metropolitan University analysed a sample of the drug - in an attempt to understand exactly what is being peddled to the city's poorest and most vulnerable people.