A top health official said he jokes about “the good old days of heroin” because the drugs situation in Merseyside is now “much more dangerous”.

Gary Rickwood, senior public health manager at Wirral Council, said people are pretending to be pharmacists mixing all sorts of drugs together.

Mr Rickwood told councillors on the local authority’s health committee on November 25 the situation with drugs was far more dangerous than it was in the 1980s. Merseyside was one of the first areas to be hit by the heroin epidemic which took place around this time and the first to mount a concerted treatment response.

The warnings came following a question from veteran councillor Phil Gilchrist, who referenced previous campaigns done to tackle drug problems in the 1970s and 80s. He expressed concern about “new drugs affecting young people’s waterworks […] and destroying them” and wanted to know how the service was responding to new trends.

Mr Rickwood, who told councillors he had worked in drug services for a long time, said the situation was more dangerous because the supply chain now tended to mix drugs together and was “coming up with these exotic cocktail names.” An example he gave is “pink cocaine”, a drug mix which may include MDMA or ecstasy, ketamine, amphetamines, but may also contain several other drugs.

The officer said the message the council needed to get out to those thinking of experimenting with drugs is “you can have absolutely no confidence what you are using is exactly what you are being told it is”. He said drugs were being mixed with fentanyl, nitazenes, and prescribed medications by people “playing at being chemists.”

Mr Rickwood added: “It is a very dangerous world and that is the message we need to get out to our younger users. Our older users I think are past that.”

Councillors in the meeting referenced “the dark days of the 1980s” and praised the service for the work it was doing. Cllr Simon Mountney said the service was exemplar and outstanding.

Cllr Mike Sullivan said authorities needed to change their whole approach to drugs arguing it was not working as young people “are putting substances in their bodies they haven’t got the faintest idea what it’s made up of”.

He said there needs to be education as well as a move to not criminalise people for their addictions but help them instead, adding: “Until we have a government who are brave enough, because it is a brave decision, at some stage it’s got to come to that.”

Committee chair Cllr Graeme Cooper said he disagreed with calls to decriminalise drug use but agreed education was a way forward. However Cllr Ewan Tomeny argued drug use should be seen as a public health issue rather than a criminal justice one.