Even in these mutable times Stoney Middleton is about the last place that you would expect to find a Class A drugs factory. In the Derbyshire Peak District, overlooked by spectacular cliffs, it is the prototypal rural English village dotted with allotments, grey stone cottages, a tiny post office and a hairdressing salon which still uses old-fashioned beehive dryers.

But it is here that police recently discovered what is believed to be the biggest laboratory for producing crystal methamphetamine found in the UK. If any of the locals passing by the industrial unit on the Rock Mill Business Park noticed a distinctive smell akin to cat urine or burnt rubber, or saw an unusually high number of discarded Sudafed boxes – both among the telltale signs of crystal meth production – they were unlikely to have been alarmed.

They have probably never even heard of crystal meth and certainly wouldn’t recognise the paraphernalia that surrounds its production. Possibly neither have you. Its use in Britain is still relatively small. But it is a hideously destructive substance that is said to be the most addictive drug in the world. It has wreaked havoc in America and now it is starting to creep into Britain.

So worried are police about the drug taking hold here that Sudafed, Day Nurse Capsule and other popular flu remedies may soon become prescription-only medications. There is increasing concern that pseudoephedrine and ephedrine – found in over-the-counter decongestants – is being extracted to make the drug methylamphetamine. Last week the Medicines and Health-care Products Regulatory Agency launched a consultation process to find out whether the availability of medicines containing pseudoephedrine – which also include Nurofen Cold and Flu tablets – should be restricted in Britain.

Some 12 million Americans are estimated to have used crystal meth – aka Ice, Tina and Nazi Crank (so called because Adolf Hitler was rumoured to inject it every day) – a drug which can be smoked, snorted, swallowed or injected. It greatly heightens sexual arousal but over time mercilessly ravages the body. It is a major problem in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Japan. In many areas of the US, such as Georgia, it is a state priority. In one Arizona town a special school has been set up for meth-addicted teenagers. The New York police chief Anthony Izzo told the House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology: “Crystal meth makes crack cocaine look like a Hershey [chocolate] bar.”

Though British police have been warned to expect an epidemic like America’s since the early 1990s it somehow never came, probably because of lack of availability and the fashion for Ecstasy, cocaine and heroin. It has been used sporadically as a club drug and by sections of the gay community, but somehow it did not take off as a major drug of choice.

But now there are signs that this is changing. In December 2006 Timothy Morgan, 41, became the first person in Britain to be convicted of producing crystal meth. He had “cooked up” so much of the drug on the Isle of Wight where he lived that police say it would have sold for £1.3 million, probably on the South Coast. Other sporadic finds of the drug have been made in Wales, Lincolnshire and London. In January the Government recognised its looming danger and reclassified it as a Class A drug.

Crystal meth’s effect on the body is uniquely horrific, as illustrated by the police’s famous “before and after” photographs of users whose grotesquely deteriorating looks are charted over years of use, see below. The skeletal, PoW-type features, the bloodily scabbed skin, the accelerated ageing process, the tooth rot, known as “meth mouth”, are all on show. The drug denies the user sleep, sometimes for up to two weeks at a time. It creates a spectacular high but this hampers the brain’s production of dopamine (the feel-good chemical) and users become increasingly dependant on it to feel normal. Some talk of becoming addicted from the very first hit. Experts say that it results in a state of psychosis.

Here are some of the things that people who have taken it say. “It makes you feel bright and shiny”; “You are suddenly the most attractive, interesting, confident f****r on the planet”; “Sometimes just thinking of the drug is a huge turn-on”; “It is the vilest drug I have ever come across”; “It destroys you. It destroys everything.”

The Peak District and the Isle of Wight may seem odd places in which to find factories for a drug like this but actually it makes perfect sense. The process is so toxic and odorous that remote, rural spots are the best places to operate unnoticed. As Steve Holme, project manager of Derbyshire Police’s Drug Mapping Project, says, not only is there a huge risk to people making and taking the drug, it also endangers those living and working near a “lab”. The ingredients are highly explosive (the reason that half of the labs in Los Angeles are found is because they have burst into flames), and the fumes caused by the cooking process are poisonous. It took Derbyshire officers several days to close down the factory found at Stoney Middleton because of the volatile nature of the chemicals found. Toxic chemicals may have been dumped in the nearby countryside.

Even though its presence is still small, Holme talks to neighbourhood watch groups to alert them to the classic signs of meth production: red or yellow staining on the clothes, large amounts of discarded decongestant packets, permanently blacked-out windows on a house and a twitchy demeanour. Evidence indicates that the number of labs can suddenly take off dramatically. In Australia and New Zealand they have increased by 100 per cent year on year. Meth’s appeal, he says, is that while the effects of crack cocaine, for instance, last for only about ten minutes, a crystal meth hit lasts for about eight hours. And it is about the same price as cocaine – £40-£45 a gram.

DI Clive Merrett, one of the detectives in Hampshire who built the case against Morgan, says the amount of energy it gives the user is phenomenal. “In America, when you watch the news and someone has been shot but they are still walking towards the police they are on Ice, which is crystal meth. If it does take a hold in this country we have a serious problem. You get a high with this drug but you also get the most incredible low.”

Sky, a 36-year-old American, who now drives a school bus, knows all about that. She also knows about the shame that crystal meth use leaves behind. It lowers sexual inhibition to such a point that she did things which now disgust her.

“That stuff makes you someone you are not. I did things I’m not proud of,” she says. “It lowers your inhibitions to the lowest point they can go. I don’t even want a Playboy mag in my house – I dislike pornography – but this drug lets you do lots of things you just wouldn’t (normally) do. Your morals and values go completely. It just keeps raising the bar. It is a vicious, vicious cycle.”

Sky (this is the name she uses on her meth users’ website) lives in Missouri. She was offered crystal meth by a female friend and was, she says, instantly hooked. “I felt good about me,” she says. “I felt confident.” But it wasn’t long before the more unpleasant side-effects kicked in. One is that users scratch and pick themselves obsessively – hence the term “speed bugs” coined by amphetamine users – as the toxins seep through the skin. “I was once awake for 16 days. I was in a zombified state doing things by instinct,” says Sky. “There is a lot of sweating. I lost 60lb in a month, going from a size 14 to a size 5. My eyes were sunk, I was skeletal. There was a time I picked myself so badly I looked like I has crusted mosquito bites all over my body. The stuff is trying to get out of your pores. It’s toxic; it’s like drinking half a pint of battery acid.”

She managed to keep her job as a bartender throughout her six-year crystal meth abuse despite being forced to live for a while in her car, a Chevy Cavalier. She and her then husband were co-users and she knew that to get clean she had to leave him.

“I knew either me or him was going to die,” she says. She has not used the drug for eight years and deliberately chose a job (the school bus driver) that she knew would entail her being regularly drugs-tested. Getting off it is hard. Very hard. Because the low is so severe and so prolonged many people can’t afford the “risk” of getting clean lest they lose their jobs or relationships. “You cannot raise yourself for weeks and weeks sometimes. You cannot get out of bed, literally.”

In America there are already state laws ruling that Sudafed and similar products must be stored behind pharmacy counters. Timothy Morgan was buying the substances on the internet where umpteen “recipes” can be found. Few realise how dangerous the manufacturing process is and many have been killed by ensuing explosions.

And do not be fooled into thinking that this is an “underclass” drug. The singer Rufus Wainwright has admitted to once having had a crystal meth addiction, as has Stacy Ferguson, the female voice of the Black Eyed Peas.

The writer David Scheff recounted his own teenage son’s horrendous meth addiction which resulted in him stealing from the piggy bank of his eight-year-old brother. Richard Cazaly, the man whom police hold responsible for stabbing Abigail Witchalls, was a known crystal meth user.

The drugs charity Drugscope urges that we do not overreact to the crystal meth issue, emphasising that its prevalance is still small and that we will not necessarily suffer an epidemic like America’s. Harry Shapiro, spokesman for DrugScope, said the fact that crystal meth creates such a prolonged “hit” might mean that dealers would be less willing to sell it as it would not be as profitable as, say, crack cocaine. Also crystal meth might be too strong for mainstream amphetamine users. “Everyone needs to be vigilant,” he says, “but it can take a long time for drugs to come into mainstream use. We first saw Ecstasy in this country in 1985 but it took three or four years until the general public had heard if it.”

But in a recent issue of Police Review officers expressed concern that an epidemic could be brewing.

Detective Chief Inspector Jason Ashwood, of the ACPO methamphetamine working group, which comprises officers from various forces plus a London judge and a member of the US drug enforcement administration, tells the publication: “Most people can take cocaine, ecstasy, even heroin and manage their own habits but meth is a different animal and that is the problem. Not every meth user becomes addicted but compared with cocaine, crack and heroin, meth is associated with higher levels of addiction, antisocial behaviour and crime rates.

“It is difficult to predict an epidemic but I think all the factors are here. We are the biggest amphetamine consumers in the world, bigger than Australia and even the US, so where does that leave us with meth? Does it leave us with a bigger opportunity to develop a problem?” DI Merrett says he is surprised that so far there have been so few court cases. “It amazes me there haven’t been more prosecutions,” he says. “If it is here on the Isle of Wight then it’s in London, Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool.”

Meanwhile, in Derbyshire the investigation continues. Holmes and others are arranging special conferences for social workers, probation officers and other key workers in the area, warning them to be vigilant for the signs of crystal meth production.

As Sky says, the road to recovery is long and the trip just isn’t worth it. “The depression I have been through [since quitting] is quite unbelievable,” she says. “To be honest I still think about it. It’s a horrible drug but there are some things I still wish I could do. I loved the feeling. I’ve put on weight since I quit. I’m a size 18 now.

“I say there are three sides to me: before crystal meth, during it and after it. It ruined everything. It takes about a week to get it out of your system but mentally it stays with you for ever.”

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