Coroner warns drugs are as 'cheap as chips' after immigration officer dies snorting £5 amphetamine

Immigration worker Jonathon McGrath, 32, was snorting amphetamines with friends at their city centre flat when he suffered heart failure.

After hearing how the group - one of whom worked as a solicitor - had used it to round off their night out, coroner Nigel Meadows warned that the falling price of 'recreational' drugs would inevitably lead to more deaths.

'I know how cheap drugs are,' he said. 'You can get a bag of speed for £10 to £15.

'It's as cheap as chips. You can buy Ecstasy tablets for a few quid.'

The judge also said that drugs were no more expensive than a round of drinks

'If you can get drugs for the price of a round of drinks people, particularly younger people, will want to try them while ignorant of the dangers.'

Mr McGrath had been on a night out in Manchester with close friend Paul Davison a solicitor, and another couple, NHS worker Terry Davis, 39, and his 31-year-old partner Joanne.

After leaving a nightclub in the early hours of October 20 last year, they went back to the Davis’s flat.

They used a rolled-up £5 note to snort amphetamines, or speed, which Mr McGrath had bought earlier.

The trio told an inquest into his death that they had been dancing around the living room and failed to notice Mr McGrath had been in the lavatory for up to an hour.

They called an ambulance but doctors were unable to save him.

All three were later arrested on suspicion of possessing a class A drug and later given police cautions.

After hearing their account, Mr Meadows said: ‘This touches all of society.

‘You have a group of very middle-class people in their 30s who thought they were having a good time. They ended up having an extremely traumatic experience.’

Tests revealed that Mr McGrath, a former Butlins redcoat who weighed 17 stone, had an enlarged heart and partially blocked arteries.

Pathologist Dr Richard Lumb told the hearing that long-term use of amphetamines could damage the heart and that taking the drug could cause it to beat quickly and irregularly, potentially leading to cardiac arrest.

Mr McGrath was slightly below the drink-drive limit and his cause of death was recorded as alcohol and amphetamine toxicity. Mr Meadows ruled that he died from non-dependent use of drugs.

Mr Davison said his friend sometimes took drugs on nights out, but his mother Ann said her son was ‘not a druggie’.

The solicitor, who has resigned from his job following the death of his friend, claimed to have taken drugs just three times in 14 years.

‘It’s been horrendous what has happened, to lose a friend like this,’ he said.

He is expected to face censure from the Law Society, which regulates solicitors.