It’s important to be on the lookout for both drug users and drug dealers
Here are a few of the thing you should look out for:
Signs of drug use – materials
- Torn-up beer mats/cigarette packets/bits of cardboard left on tables or in ashtrays
- Foam stuffing taken from seats, bits of foam left around
- Roaches (home-made filter tips from cannabis cigarettes)
- Small packets made of folded paper, card or foil
- Empty sweet wrappings left in toilets
- Payment with tightly rolled banknotes, or notes that have been tightly rolled
- Traces of blood or powder on banknotes
- Drinking straws left in toilets
- Traces of powder on toilet seats or other surfaces in toilets – or obviously wiped-clean surfaces
- Syringes (danger of infection – do not touch with bare hands and should be disposed of properly)
- Spoons left in toilets
- Pieces of burned tinfoil
Signs of drug use – physical symptoms
- Very dilated pupils
- Excessive sniffing, dripping nose, watering or red eyes
- Sudden severe cold symptoms following trip to toilet/garden/car park
- White mark/traces of powder around nostrils
Signs of drug use – behaviour
- Excessive giggling, laughing at nothing, non-stop talking
- Unnaturally dopey, vacant staring, sleepy euphoria
- Non-stop movement, jiggling about, dancing
- Gagging or retching actions
- Excessive consumption of soft drinks
- Sudden, inexplicable tearfulness or fright
- Any marked alteration in behaviour following trip to toilet/garden/car park
Signs of dealing
- A person holding court, with succession of visitors who only stay with them for a short time
- A person making frequent trips to the toilet or garden or car park, followed by different persons/people each time
- People exchanging small packages or cash, often done in secretive manner, but may be quite open to avoid suspicion
- Furtive, conspiratorial behaviour – huddling in corners and whispering
- Conversation includes frequent reference to drugs, slang names
Dealers are not identifiable by appearance, they may be very respectable-looking.