Simeon McAnoy died after taking nitazenes, a synthetic opioid linked to hundreds of deaths. Image: Big Issue composite
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When Jackie McAnoy found out what had killed her son, Simeon, she’d never heard of nitazenes. News of 33-year-old Simeon’s death came in a Facebook post and, as she pieced together what had happened, nobody explained to her exactly what this new drug was. “I feel like he’s been treated like nobody,” says Jackie.
Big Issue has been investigating the human toll of nitazenes – powerful synthetic opioids which have been linked to 284 deaths across the country. After a Taliban crackdown limited heroin supplies, dealers began to mix synthetic opioids into their product. It is proving deadly, with heroin users unknowingly consuming lethal nitazenes.
Read more of Big Issue’s investigation into the deadly toll of nitazenes:
We previously revealed that in Birmingham, where Simeon’s life ended, at least 21 people had died after taking them over the summer. Yet the city’s authorities are reluctant to comment. Deaths from nitazenes, many of them happening among the UK’s homeless population, pass unremarked. Little is widely understood about whose lives are being lost, and how those lives get to that point.
Were chances to save Simeon McAnoy missed? His mother believes so.
Simeon with Jackie, his mum. Image: Supplied
‘We never play music now’
Lovers rock would play on Sunday mornings at the McAnoy family home. If Jackie didn’t play it in the house, Simeon used to put it on his phone. That or R&B, perhaps a bit of 50 Cent. He was doing well in school and thought about a future designing computer games. When Jackie spent time in the garden, Simeon helped her and showed her how to do things. Away from home, he’d play out with kids his own age – just like any child growing up in the ’90s. “We never play music now. Because every song will bring us back to Sim,” says Jackie.
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A young Simeon at home with his siblings. Image: Supplied
But before his death, Simeon had changed. Gone were the jeans, t-shirt, cap, trainers and sharp haircut of before, when he loved how he looked. When he turned up to visit Jackie every month on pay day, bringing his mum and sister a bunch of flowers, Simeon might be wearing a waistcoat and an old man’s bowler hat, paired with some battered trainers. His hair was in dreadlocks, dyed red. “I loved him, he loved me,” says Jackie. “We’d think, ‘Oh Simeon, please get yourself together.’” What she didn’t know was that he was using heroin.
Simeon’s trouble began, in Jackie’s telling, at 17. A relationship broke down, and a heartbroken Simeon started smoking cannabis and getting in trouble with the law. He first went to prison in 2007, for six weeks – the start of a cycle of being inside and out. After this, he began using mamba, a synthetic cannabinoid similar to spice. Out of prison, he went between homeless hostels in the West Midlands. “He was just doing silly, silly things, which I believe were just down to his addiction,” Jackie says.
By 2023, he’d been out of prison for about a year. On 4 October, Simeon was due to visit Jackie. Instead, there was a message on his Facebook page: “For all who know sims he was rushed into hospital today and is in a coma.”
‘Our thoughts are with Simeon’s family and loved ones’
Simeon’s last weeks had been chaotic. July saw his most recent contact with Change Grow Live (CGL), a drugs and alcohol service in Birmingham: a liaison worker had visited him at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, but he was sleepy. He could not communicate his contact details, was discharged and sent a letter to attend a drop-in – but his case was closed after a lack of contact. CGL notes show Simeon had progressed from crack cocaine to injecting heroin.
That was not the only time he was in hospital in the weeks before his death: with a burn on his face growing infected, he was taken to hospital at least three times, often leaving before treatment could be given or missing follow-up appointments. It was never clear how Simeon got the burn. He later told paramedics he had set himself on fire while intoxicated on heroin, and was unsure if it was intentional, but a different doctor believed it may have been a result of falling onto a gas stove during a seizure.
On one occasion, an urgent psychiatric assessment was made, but he left before any treatment could be given. On another, he was scheduled to have surgery but left the ward and couldn’t be found. Later, Simeon also refused hospital treatment for his burn, with a doctor deeming him as “having capacity to make the decision to decline treatment”.
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Police arrested Simeon for robbery on 24 August. It is here Jackie believes the key opportunity to save him was missed. In the cells, a mental health team decided Simeon was a suicide risk. A nurse decided he needed an assessment to see if he should be sectioned and detained for his own safety.
But Simeon was released before this formal assessment could be made. In a witness statement given to the inquest into Simeon’s death, the officer on duty said he felt it was no longer needed after Simeon said his suicidal comments had been made out of anger, and that his wounds were not self-inflicted. Instead, without input from the mental health nurse, another assessment was scheduled. A report commissioned for Simeon’s inquest found it was “very unlikely” the formal assessment would have resulted in him being sectioned.
From this point, services struggled to get hold of Simeon. Mental health services and a homeless GP practice were unable to locate him. An arrest referral service run by the charity Cranstoun directed him back to CGL for help with heroin use, but his case was closed when he couldn’t be contacted. Without a phone number or address, he was discharged by the Handsworth Home Treatment mental health team. As far as multiple organisations were concerned, he had fallen off the map.
A spokesperson for CGL said: “During this difficult time, our thoughts are with Simeon’s family and loved ones. Change Grow Live made several attempts to contact Simeon directly, encouraging him to engage with our Birmingham service. Unfortunately, we were unable to contact Simeon. Change Grow Live is committed to supporting those with substance misuse problems.”
At the same time, nitazenes were sweeping through Birmingham. As we reported, figures compiled from coroners’ records by retired GP Judith Yates show 21 people died from nitazenes in the three months of summer 2023, most of whom had taken heroin. Some died in hostels, often having unknowingly taken nitazenes mixed in with heroin. The city’s authorities mounted an emergency response, getting the word out, and by September the rate of deaths slowed.
‘I didn’t even know what I was looking at’
Seeing the message on Simeon’s Facebook page, Jackie rang the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. “He was always there. It’s always where he had his surgeries,” she says. But she was told they didn’t have him, and that he wouldn’t be at any other hospital in the region. “I thought OK, everything’s OK, it’s just someone’s being silly,” Jackie says.
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A day later, there was a new message on Simeon’s Facebook page: “PLEASE can anyone let me know if you have any family details for Simeon McAnoy he passed away early hours this morning its urgent we find his family.”
The messages left on Simeon’s Facebook page. Image: Supplied
A friend managed to get in touch with the people who posted the status, and they gave him the number for the coroner. After a sickening, nerve-wracking week, Jackie found herself face to face with her son, his face half covered up. “Simeon was a beautiful, kind, stunning young man. He was so pretty. And at the end, I didn’t even know what I was looking at,” she says. What had happened to Simeon?
Around 1am on 3 October Simeon had met up with a girl he was seeing. He had £300, and they called a taxi. Simeon was going to score and headed to an address that was a known crack den. At 10.09am, an ambulance was called to the address. Simeon had been found unresponsive and was in cardiac arrest. Those in the house stayed on the phone and did CPR. Seven minutes later, the ambulance crew arrived, and at 10.53am his heart started beating so they took him to City Hospital. Police were called, a report by the ambulance crew shows, because occupants at the address had become “aggressive”.
At hospital, Simeon was resuscitated with a device used for chest compressions. A toxicology report showed cocaine, morphine, noscapine (a street marker of heroin) and cocaethylene (cocaine and alcohol) were in his system. The toxicologists also found N-desethyl isotonitazene: a form of nitazene. Unable to get hold of Simeon’s family, doctors agreed a Do Not Resuscitate order was in his best interests as a patient. The next morning, he rapidly deteriorated in spite of “ongoing organ support treatments”, and died. He was 33.
“I feel like they just thought he was nobody, because they thought he was homeless, he died of drugs and nobody loved him,” Jackie says. “But actually, he comes from a beautiful family who love him to death.”
Simeon during his school days. Image: Supplied
‘I just feel like he was failed’
When we speak, it has been almost a year since Simeon’s death. Jackie goes to his grave twice a day. She believes he could have been saved. “I’m trying to be respectful of everybody, but I just feel like he was failed,” she says. “Where was the intervention?”
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She returns to his arrest in August: “Had they sectioned him when they had him, seen how much he hurt himself, seen he was riddled with drugs, he’d still be here today. But that’s just my opinion on the whole situation.”
She thinks others could be saved from the same heartache. Safe drug-consumption facilities, like one that is due to open in Glasgow, offer a safe environment to take drugs, with advice and overdose support on hand. Had these existed, Jackie believes Simeon would have used them. “We need somewhere safe that they can go and use them,” she says. “I really think it would save many lives.”
She also believes not enough is being done about the threat nitazenes pose. “They don’t even talk about it,” she says. “They’re not doing enough.
“I just don’t want anyone to die. We really, really need the government to maybe rethink the whole situation, because nothing’s going to stop it.”
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