‘Great quantities’ of deadly street valium are being manufactured in Greenock under the nose of law enforcement, a new BBC File on 4 documentary has found.

High Anxiety: The Deadly Trade in Street Valium follows the surge in illegal use of the drug across the UK, which reporter Jane Deith says took off north of the border before catching on in the North East of England.

Millions of fake valium tablets worth million of pounds are also being made in England bound for Scotland, but there is also a roaring local trade and industry for manufacture and sale in Inverclyde.

Visiting Greenock in the latest episode Deith said: “You could call Scotland the birthplace of so called street valium – fake pills made from synthetic substitutes for the real drug sometimes they are called vallies benzos or blues because of their blue colour.

“The pills can be very strong and very addictive and on this stretch of the Clyde Greenock is the place to buy and sell them.”

Daryl McLeister from charity Scottish Families Affected by Alcohol and Drugs told Deith that dealing is often carried out in plain sight of law enforcement: “We are standing at the corner of Cathcart Street in Greenock and directly across from us is the police station… you can watch people come and go from that close door go upstairs come back out jump in a taxi.

“If I wanted to go and get street valium I would go in that door and I would get some in minutes – 100m metres from law enforcement.

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