DEALERS are using Twitter to promote and sell their drugs in plain sight in Furness.

Criminals have used the social platform to advertise Class A substances across the country, including in Barrow. 

It follows a probe by this newspaper that found several Twitter accounts were using the platform as a place to sell illegal substances.

The account advertises the selling of substances such as cannabis, cocaine and heroin.

The tweets include ways of getting in touch with the dealers by phone, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Telegram and Wickr with a 'fast and discreet delivery.'

Barrow's MP Simon Fell said: "This is disgraceful. I raised this issue with the National Crime Agency during the Home Affairs Committee last week. It is against T&Cs of Meta to allow such activity on Facebook, Instagram or Whatsapp. 

"The duty is on them to ensure that criminals are not allowed to exploit their platforms. When the Online Safety Bill comes into law businesses like Meta will be subject to fines of up to 10% of their global revenue if they continue fail to do.

"The fact that these accounts keep popping up is a clear indication of the need for this law."

READ MORE: Twitter criminals advertising sale of drugs in south Cumbria

David Higham, chairman of The Well Communities, which supports people recovering from drug and alcohol addiction through therapy, counselling, peer mentoring and employment training, said: "These drugs and drug dealers are penetrating the walls of our homes and coming through phones and laptops to get into our young and vulnerable people who are trying to stay away from drugs.

"What more do we need to do to protect our communities from dangerous drugs that are killing people?

"It really sickens and saddens me that these dealers and drugs are coming through these avenues, and as a society, our government needs to clamp down on this.

"If this was happening in our streets, the police would stop and arrest someone, so why aren't they doing this online?

"There needs to be a police force or a task force that is addressing this and social media should be held accountable for this because if I let someone in my home sell drugs from my house, I would be arrested and imprisoned so therefore, if they are allowing someone to sell drugs on their platform they should be arrested and held to account and sent to prison like the rest of us."

A spokesperson from Cumbria Police said: "We know drug dealers will use whatever sales avenue they can to push substances onto other people.

"To them this is just a business and they do not care about the human costs.

"Our officers are relentless in targeting and disrupting all those involved in drug dealing and explore all avenues of enquiry.

"Drug dealing negatively impacts a whole community and often involves the unscrupulous exploitation of vulnerable people for criminal gains.

"To tackle drug crime and take drug dealers out of the community, we need the help of the community."

According to Twitter rules available on their website, the platform takes the safety of their users 'seriously.'

It says: "In an effort to address the potential for real-world harm, we do not allow the use of Twitter for any unlawful behaviour or to further illegal activities.

"This includes selling, buying, or facilitating transactions in illegal goods or services, as well as certain types of regulated goods or services. In some cases, we may ask you to contact a law enforcement agency and have them contact us via our law enforcement request page to ensure we have enough context to enforce this policy.

"In addition to reports received, we proactively surface activity that may violate this policy for human review."

People can report drug dealing activity to 101 or at www.cumbria.police.uk/reportit, and the relevant social media platforms.