150,000 sleeping pills seized at airport 'sealed in bags of M&Ms'

The revelation comes as part of the annual report from the Organised Crime Task Force.

The rising danger from prescription medicines was highlighted strongly in the report, with diazepam noted as being particularly prevalent in Northern Ireland.

Tim Mairs, Head of Criminal Investigations at the PSNI, said the various agencies under the umbrella of the Task Force, are collaborating to tackle the issue.

"Deaths caused by drugs remain the largest source of harm through criminality in Northern Ireland.

"It's something we work very hard with partners to target, both with seizing drug here in Northern Ireland, but the likes of the UK Border Force help us to target drugs coming through the postal system."

The issue of blended drug use was also brought up in the report, with fentanyl responsible for a small number of deaths in the past year.

The drug can make harmful substances like heroin 10,000 times more powerful when mixed and carries a high risk of overdose.

It has become a major problem for law enforcement in America.

"One of the biggest challenges for us as a Task Force is to constantly be scanning the horizon," said Mr Mairs.

"There are massive issues with opioid dependency in the United States.

"From our perspective, we're not there as a society in Northern Ireland, in many ways we've worked hard to prevent that.

"But we do see real harm from prescription drugs and opioid-related drugs and it's something we have to work on really closely with our partners in health, to ensure we take a really strong preventative approach to that.

"Then police and other partners can focus on the supply side and try and keep that restricted."

Official figures for 2016 show a reduction in drug-related deaths compared to the previous year.

However such deaths were on an upward trend for the nine previous years.

Overall, there were over 5,500 drug seizures in the past year.

• psni
• NCA
• uk border force
• Belfast International Airport