Pubdate: Fri, 4 Jan 2008
Source: Globe and Mail (Canada)
Copyright: 2008, The Globe and Mail Company
Contact:  http://www.globeandmail.ca/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/168
Author: Timothy Appleby

CANADA FUELLING PRODUCTION OF 'EXTREME ECSTASY'

First there was methamphetamine, a stimulant that in assorted forms 
has been around for decades. Then came the designer drug ecstasy, 
otherwise known as MDMA and popularized by the rave culture that 
mushroomed in the 1990s.

Now there's "extreme ecstasy," a blend of both drugs that U.S. 
authorities say is being manufactured in bulk in Canada and shipped 
wholesale across the border.

"This probably goes back at least two years," said RCMP 
Superintendent Ron Allen, who heads drug-enforcement in the greater 
Toronto region.

"When we have taken samples of MDMA for analysis, we have very 
frequently found there is a [methamphetamine] content. There was a 
case we did about a year and a half ago, a 10,000-pill seizure, that 
came back as 80 per cent meth.

"We've been telling the U.S. this is going on. This is a very active market."

Just how active is illustrated by statistics released yesterday by 
the White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy.

In the 10 northern U.S. states that border Canada, federal 
authorities intercepted 568,220 doses of ecstasy believed to be 
Canadian-made in 2003. By 2006, that number had soared almost tenfold 
to 5,485,619.

And while the 2007 data are still being collated, samples from last 
year show that more than 55 per cent contained methamphetamine.

Southern Ontario and British Columbia's Lower Mainland appear to be 
the chief points of entry, reflective of Asian organized crime rings' 
long-standing grip on the ecstasy trade, with bikers playing a lesser role.

The United States is by far the largest market for Canadian-made 
ecstasy -- an industry that churns out more than two million pills a 
week, by RCMP estimates -- but it is by no means the only one.

Up until about 2004, ecstasy was chiefly a European product, with the 
Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Britain leading the way.

But tighter regulations governing the sale of its ingredients, which 
then as now originate principally in China, India and Eastern Europe, 
shifted much of the trade to Canada, where drug laws are 
significantly less punitive than in the United States.

That same logic fuels the cross-border marijuana industry, another 
perennial thorn in Canada-U.S. relations.

Canadian-produced ecstasy, however, travels further than Canadian- 
grown marijuana and has shown up as far afield as Australia, Japan 
and even Colombia.

So why create a cocktail of ecstasy and meth?

As with all drugs that get "cut" with other ingredients, the big 
reason is cost. The ingredients for meth are cheaper than those found 
in MDMA, and are often easier to obtain. And for a large-scale 
operation, as the dozens of Canadian ecstasy labs dismantled in 
recent years have almost invariably been, the extra profits are significant.

As well, the meth component increases the addictive potential, adding 
what the Office of National Drug Control Policy describes as "a 
facelift" to a drug whose popularity has declined somewhat since 
peaking in the late 1990s.

Methamphetamine is the base of the fiercely addictive street drug 
crystal meth, also known as crank, which has steadily moved from west 
to east in the past decade, wreaking havoc on rural communities 
throughout the Prairies and the U.S. Midwest. The Atlantic provinces 
have also been badly afflicted.

And while ecstasy has long been regarded as far more dangerous than 
aficionados often realize because of its toxic impact on the brain, 
adding meth to the mix severely compounds the risks.

Both drugs can disrupt the body's ability to regulate temperature, 
heating up a person's system to a point that can produce liver, 
kidney and cardiovascular-system failure, and sometimes death, 
particularly if alcohol is ingested as well.

As a result, there is dismay in the White House.

"This 'extreme ecstasy' is a disturbing development in what has been 
one of the most significant international achievements against the 
illicit drug trade," John Walters, President George W. Bush's drug 
czar, said in a release accompanying the new figures.

"Historic progress against ecstasy availability and use is in 
jeopardy of being rolled back by Canadian criminal organizations." 
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