Pupils are using Snapchat to deal Class A drugs in schools – with one 16-year-old boasting he can make £7,000 a month.
The teen claims to use the social media platform, on which dealers offer shop-style special offers and giveaways to draw punters in, to target kids as young as 12.
He told a probe by podcast The Next Episode: “I can make seven grand a month. It’s easy. You can sign up with a dodgy number and be as anonymous as you want.
“I’ve had Snapchat accounts shut down but you just make a new one.”
Three kids get kicked out of school a day for drugs and booze-related incidents.
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And expulsions from state-funded secondaries over drug-related incidents have surged 55% in five years.
One 15-year-old told the BBC podcast a pal took ecstasy in an exam and kids do ketamine in school.
A 14-year-old said: “One day you hear some kid’s got coke, got MD, then police vans pull up and a kid’s took out in handcuffs.”
A probe by the podcast revealed social media may be a key driver of the drug problem. Snapchat reaches 60% of 13 to 34-year-olds. But policing dealing is difficult.
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Niko Vorobyov, ex-dealer and author of Dopeworld, says: “You can block hashtags but they make up new slang. You can’t track them if they keep switching accounts.”
The BBC found a Snapchat dealer in every police constabulary in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and reported some to the platform.
After two weeks, only one had been taken down – and promptly set up a new account.
A teacher in the North East said kids taking drugs in repeatedly are yet to be excluded.
He said: “No school wants to be known as the druggy school.
“Students have said in a jokey way, ‘I might as well sell drugs because I won’t get kicked out’.”
Darren Northcott, of teachers’ union NASUWT, said drugs are “something we need more focus on”.
Snapchat told the podcast: “We are deeply committed to the safety of our community and our terms of service and community guidelines prohibit anyone from using Snapchat to buy or sell drugs.”
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