‘Home-brewed heroin’ on streets in two years

Home-brewed heroin could become a terrifying reality within two years following the creation of genetically modified yeast that can be used to make opiate drugs, experts have warned.

Scientists called for urgent action to prevent criminal organisations gaining access to the technology, which could allow them to abandon opium poppy farms and ply their illegal trade from a plethora of local ‘factories’.

Their fears are spelled out in the leading journal Nature while a scientific paper describing key stages in the process of producing opiates from sugar-fed yeast appears in a sister publication.