UK Skunkworks is opening a shop two floors below an anti-drugs charity

by Nick Lillitos

Welcome to perhaps Britain’s most mismatched neighbours - a shop selling drugs downstairs and a rehab unit upstairs.

A controversial retail franchise selling so-called "legal highs", is opening in Maidstone... right under the noses of an anti-drugs charity.

The shop selling substances known as designer drugs will operate at street level while just two floors above in Mill House, Mill Street, sits the rehab charity Crime Reduction Initiatives (CRI).

It works with other service agencies to help offenders come off drugs. Some 75% of young people who enter treatment with the charity are said to have stopped using them.

The shop opening below them is part of an extensive franchise operation called UK Skunkworks and is perfectly legal.

It sells drug smoking equipment, party pills and pellets called Benzo Fury. Earlier this year, 19-year-old student Alex Heriot was reported to have died at the RockNess Festival in Scotland after using the substance.

Benzo Fury pellets, which have been linked to the death of a teenager

The colourless stimulant is inhaled and is said to have psychedelic effects.

Landlord of the shop being leased by UK Skunkworks is London-based Daniel Epstein.

He said: "I know about this. As far as I’m concerned I've just let it out. What they do with it is up to them."

Behind metal shuttered windows, carpenters are putting up shelving for the latest skunk shop which businessman Max Mulley, who runs five of them elsewhere, said will be opening in a "few weeks’ time".

"The shop won’t be mine, it will be run by another franchise person," said Mr Mulley, who foreshadowed some weeks ago a skunk shop would be coming to Maidstone.

He said at the time: "It’s a big town with a university and lots of students and so there should be demand."

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'Law will struggle to keep up'

Staying ahead of "legal high" drug makers will remain "extremely difficult" in terms of legislation, says CRI chief executive David Royce.

"The effects of these drugs are less well known, which means the obvious signs of their use can be harder to attribute to a particular drug, so that a helpful intervention - beyond first aid - can be difficult to plan.

"As the drug manufacturers and drug markets continue to evolve and shift so quickly it will remain extremely difficult to stay ahead."

Responding to news about its forthcoming neighbours in Mill Street, a charity spokesman said: "These influences will always be present. Our purpose is to support, guide, educate and treat those engaging in the service to be able to live healthy, productive and law abiding lives within, and contributing, to their communities."