A coroner has warned of the dangers of ‘legal highs’ after a Hook man accidentally overdosed at his home.
Laurence Pritchard had a cardiac arrest and passed away on September 19 after taking a quantity that “way exceeded the recommended amount” of the little-known drug MDMB-CHMICA.
The 25-year-old’s parents revealed at last Wednesday’s inquest that their son had started taking the psychoactive substance after finishing university and returning to the family home in Rockbourne Road, Sherfield on Loddon.
And while labelling Mr Pritchard’s death as “appallingly sad”, North East Hampshire coroner Andrew Bradley admitted that it would be almost impossible to stop people from using similar legal highs.
He said: “They’re called legal highs, but I’d call them lethal highs, and this is just a horrible situation where he’s taken one and it’s done for him.
“His heart would have been beyond redemption at the point he was discovered.
“But this is a real problem on the increase in this country, because unfortunately, every time you make one of these drugs illegal, there will be another replacement.”
MDMB-CHMICA is a “designer drug” that provides an artificial alternative to class-B drug cannabis, but can cause users to experience paranoia, panic attacks and a loss of grasp on reality.
Mr Pritchard had received substance-abuse counselling after returning home from his time at the University of Brighton, with his dad Gary admitting that it “wasn’t a huge surprise” when he discovered his son unconscious on the day of his death.
He said: “We’re sure that he got into the drugs scene in Brighton where they were easier to get, but he turned to legal highs when he came back here.
“He turned into Jekyll and Hyde when he was on the drugs – sometimes he’d be the lovely child we knew and watched grow up, but then he’d change and become unrecognisable.”
He added: “It was a shock obviously, but it wasn’t a huge surprise when I found him as there had been several incidents earlier in the year.
“But then I moved him and could tell that he’d been dead for some time.”
Speaking at Basingstoke Law Courts, coroner Mr Bradley added: “I’ve recorded a cause of death by accidental overdose.
“This case is so appallingly sad and is such a waste of life – there is nothing worse than the obscenity of burying your child.”