Drugs, booze and canals do not mix

A MAN drowned in the Leeds & Liverpool Canal after downing booze and ketamine with pals, then stumbling into the waterway.

Matthew Dutton (22) took a potentially lethal amount of ketamine—a hallucinogenic dissociative—together with booze before leaving after his night out with pals at the Oak Tree pub in Wigan to make his way home by the side of the canal, Alan Tilbury reports.

Chemical Russian Roulette

At the inquest lnto his death the coroner remarked it was compared to playing 'chemical Russian Roulette', with the pub licensee telling he was staggering and that she had taken his car keys from him, as she didn't want him driving home in such a state.

According to his friend he arrived at around 6pm and throughout the course of the night drank approximately two pints of Carlsberg and three alcopops.  Four hours later he left the pub to walk home.

His body was found days later in the canal after a search was mounted.