Drug dealers are marking Queen Elizabeth II’s death by messaging customers with their condolences alongside specially discounted products including cannabis, cocaine, and ketamine.

“Dealers,  like most other businesses, regularly use global events to promote products and offer ‘deals’ straight to people’s phones,” said Paul North, director of drug policy think tank Volteface. “The death of the Queen is being used to create the feeling they are people running a legitimate business, it makes the whole process of buying drugs feel a bit more normal, because every social media feed or TV channel is mentioning the queen.”

In a screenshot attached to a viral tweet, one dealer sent out a mail shot text 13 minutes after the  announcement of the Queen’s death at the age of 96, with a list of drugs and prices, including an ounce of weed for £150 and £30 for a gram of ketamine. Then he told his customers they were offering “a queen’s dead discount on everything ask me for details”.

Another dealer put the word out an hour after the Queen’s death on WhatsApp with a clip of the Queen doing the royal wave, the dealer told his followers: “Are you upset or feeling down with the sad news about the Queen’s death?  Then don’t hesitate to contact me, I’m around till 1AM.”

In a message passed onto VICE World News, one dealer said they were reducing the price of a gram of expensive “Bolivian flake” to £96 “in tribute to the queen who was 96 years old at time of her passing”. One person who received the message yesterday told VICE World News: “It’s a pretty shit offer in all honesty. It’s normally £100.”

One seller from Leeds in Yorkshire said they had “King Charlie ready for you all".

In New York, within hours of the news, weed sellers had started selling bags of cannabis featuring an image of Queen Elizabeth, according to one image posted on Twitter.