Pubdate: Mon, 06 Feb 2012
Source: National Post (Canada)
Copyright: 2012 Canwest Publishing Inc.
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/wEtbT4yU
Website: http://www.nationalpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/286
Author: Sarah Boesveld
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mdma.htm (Ecstasy)

HARM REDUCTION VS. DON'T TOUCH THE STUFF

Experts Agree Ecstasy Use Is a Problem, but They Are Less Unified 
About How to Fix It

Cheryl Mccormack died after she and her friends took Ecstasy at a 
sleepover. She is one of 19 people from British Columbia to die in 
the past year after taking the drug.

Leonard Timothy's heart stopped beating after coming home from the 
bar one night the 38-year-old Red Deer father of two had taken an Ecstasy pill.

The mother of 18-year-old Calgarian Daniel Dahl remembers watching 
her son's brains bleed out his nose in the emergency room after he 
overdosed on Ecstasy, his body temperature rising so rapidly that he 
was cooked from the inside.

These are just some in a spate of Ecstasy-related deaths that have 
marched a morbid path through southern Alberta and British Columbia 
in the past few months, spurring public awareness campaigns and 
scaring parents and partiers. Over the past year and until now, there 
have been 19 deaths in B.C. and 12 in Alberta related to Ecstasy 
overdoses -- at least five in the past few weeks alone.

Thirteen of those total deaths, which all occurred late last year and 
last month, have been linked to paramethoxymethamphetamine (PMMA) a 
chemical turning up inside Canadian Ecstasy. It was once the street 
name for MDMA, or methylenedioxymethamphetamine, but has come to mean 
any pill passing itself off as MDMA, even if it's been so adulterated 
as to hardly be like the original drug. PMMA, known on the street as 
"Doctor Death," is considered five times more toxic than 
run-of-the-mill street Ecstasy. It was in the pill that Mr. Timothy took.

As police try to trace the path of this especially lethal brand of 
Ecstasy, they are once again spreading the message that law 
enforcement, schools and other government bodies have been spreading 
for decades: Don't touch the stuff. Just say no.

At the same time, a growing chorus of harm reduction advocates say 
that message isn't working. The use of illegal drugs has not declined 
in recent years and there is a slice of the population that is simply 
determined to engage in risky behaviour, like taking drugs. The way 
to prevent these deaths, these advocates say, may actually be to 
accept that people will still take Ecstasy despite the warnings and 
give them a safer means of doing so. If we ignore users and hope they 
stop, they say, the deaths will continue.

Since early January, B.C.'S medical officer, Dr. Perry Kendall, has 
woven advice to drug users into his public comments on the 
Ecstasy-related deaths in his province. Users should just take one 
pill instead of several at a time (as some of the overdosers have 
done), they should keep hydrated and make sure there's a sober person 
there to help if something goes wrong. They should also know their 
dealers so they have a better idea where the drugs came from.

Of course, he's taken flak for that from those who are anti-drug.

"I understand the concerns. If nobody was doing drugs, I wouldn't go 
out with a message saying ' Here's how to do drugs safely,'" he said. 
"But given we have a substantial portion of vulnerable populations 
doing drugs, and given that police don't seem to be able to stop the 
importation or the manufacturing of drugs, the issue is how do you 
best deal with the situation you have? How do you mitigate risk?"

After cannabis and cocaine, Ecstasy is one of the most popular drugs 
in Canada. Approximately 1% of Canadians said they used it in 2009, 
the government-funded Canadian Alcohol and Drug Use Monitoring Survey reports.

"That might seem small, but when we put it into context it's 
certainly an epidemic," said Tyler Pirie, a research and policy 
analyst for the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse.

The broader public health community has backed the harm reduction 
approach, Dr. Kendall said, but it has run up against some political 
ambivalence, including from a federal government pushing a 
toughon-crime mandate. Prime Minister Stephen Harper kept harm 
reduction out of his $63.8-million national anti-drug strategy. When 
it was unveiled in 2007, he said harm-reduction efforts such as 
Vancouver's Insite needle exchange clinic were a "second-best 
strategy at best."

Ecstasy is so consistently adulterated that when pure MDMA turns up 
on the street, it's likely be to sold on the street under the name 
MDMA or sometimes "Molly." Corporal Luc Chicoine, the national 
co-ordinator for the RCMP'S pharmaceutical and synthetic drug 
operations, has worked on the street in drug operations for 18 years 
and said he can't remember ever seeing pure MDMA, which is being 
considered in other countries for potential treatment of 
post-traumatic stress disorder. "From what we've seen in last three 
years, if there's MDMA there's almost always meth" in the same tablet 
or powder, he said, referring to methamphetamine, the highly 
addictive stimulant. He's also seen MDMA cut with metallic glitter 
and car paint to give it an exciting look (it sells better that way, 
he said). Because of the clandestine nature of the way the drugs are 
made, it's almost impossible to ensure its safety, Cpl. Chicoine 
said, adding that one can't even trust a dealer since drugs can 
change hands and end up modified dozens of times before they're ingested.

But there are ways for drug users to test for chemicals lurking in 
their drugs. U.s.-based organization Dancesafe.org has been selling 
test kits -- made from a solution of selenious acid in sulfuric acid 
- -- that identify certain chemicals so one knows the makeup of the 
pill or powder they're ingesting.

Dance safe sets up booths at parties and raves to test drugs for 
partiers, just as government workers in the Netherlands, Norway, 
Austria and Switzerland have been known to do.

The Trip! Project, a harm reduction peer-initiative run by a public 
health clinic in Toronto, has obtained test kits carried 
surreptitiously over the border (they've been seized in the past), 
and handed them out to volunteers who help people test their own 
drugs at house parties.

The volunteer can't test the drugs for the user because that would be 
considered trafficking under Canadian law, said Lisa Campbell 
Salazar, a former co-ordinator of Trip! and current co-ordinator of 
the Queen West Harm Reduction Program at the Central Toronto 
Community Health Centre. Trip! will still go to parties, many of them 
underground since the rave scene fizzled out, hand out information 
and ensure people stay hydrated to keep their body temperatures down.

They also counsel users if they need someone to talk to since MDMA 
has been known to open up people's emotions.

Ms. Campbell Salazar, 28, is herself a recreational user of MDMA, 
which she differentiates from Ecstasy. She always tests her drugs 
with home testing kits -- something older, more dedicated users are 
more likely to do than the kids are -- but thinks the government can 
save lives by making information about lethal drug concoctions known.

"If Health Canada were to release drug information, not just for 
judicial purposes but for public health, it definitely would save 
lives," she said.

Health Canada has sophisticated drug testing that can determine 
chemical compounds found in drugs seized by the RCMP, said Cpl. 
Chicoine. It does not share the results of any of these tests with 
the public, said Gary Holub, a Health Canada spokesperson, adding 
that home test kits are "unreliable."

"The best way to avoid harm from illicit drugs, including Ecstasy, is 
to avoid using them," he wrote in an email to the Post. In the 
meantime, education is the best tool both harm-reduction advocates 
and those advising abstinence have at hand.

Online social networks have helped party-drug users, especially 
teenagers and postsecondary students, seek out safer drugs and party 
in a safer way, said Nick Boyce, a former volunteer with Trip! and 
current provincial director of the Ontario HIV and substance use 
training program. Sites like Ecstasydata. org also identify different 
drug concoctions by their street names and tell users what's in them. 
Of course, that would never be definitive, he said, just as the test 
kits can only identify the presence of additives that the user is 
specifically testing for: a test for meth, for instance, might not 
tell you if the pill contains PMMA.

Police in Abbotsford, where two Ecstasy-related overdoses besides Ms. 
Mccormack's occurred in the past few months, are preparing to go 
all-out with a new campaign to warn students off Ecstasy. The 
campaign will acknowledge the recent deaths in B.C. and Alberta and 
tell students about what happens to the body when these drugs are ingested.

"I guess there might be people on the harm-reduction side who take 
issue with what I'm saying, but I'm concerned about keeping people 
safe and keeping them on the planet," said Abbotsford Police 
spokesperson, Constable Ian MacDonald.

And while harm reduction advocates insist there are ways to keep drug 
users safe (one of the big ideas being legalization), people like 
Cpl. Chicoine say it's impossible.

"At the end of the day you have to remember that the only reason why 
those drugs are being produced is because somebody, somewhere is 
making a ton of cash on your $5 or $10 on your one or two tablets you 
purchased," he said. "If there is money involved and with no 
regulation and control, someone's going to make a lot of money and 
they don't care what they put in. They don't care about the user."

Legalization would only increase the ranks of people taking Ecstasy, 
he said. "We have enough legal junkies on the street," he said, 
referring to people who guzzle mouthwash and hand sanitizer or sniff 
gas and glue, all items you can buy in a shop. "Do we really need more?"

And from where Dr. Kendall sits, the only thing he can do is keep 
spreading the word about harm reduction, hoping those who do choose 
to take drugs can be a little smarter about it.

"I'd like to see the deaths come down, clearly, but I think we're 
limited in our ability to get the messages out."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom