Pubdate: Tue, 28 Feb 2012
Source: Montreal Gazette (CN QU)
Copyright: 2012 Canwest Publishing Inc.
Contact: http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/letters.html
Website: http://www.montrealgazette.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/274
Author: Max Harrold

QUEBEC CALLED MAJOR EXPORTER OF PARTY DRUGS

Criminal Groups Produce Ecstasy, Speed to Sell in U.S., Head of 
Anti-Drug Unit Says

The head of the Montreal police anti-drug unit says police raids have 
netted alarmingly large quantities of ecstasy and speed in the 
province, indicating that Quebec is likely a major exporter of the 
party drugs to other North American markets.

The demand, locally anyway, does not seem to support the apparent 
boost in supply, Montreal police Commander Patrick Lamarre explained Monday.

So the added production may be for export to the United States, where 
tougher laws make the production and sale of such drugs more 
difficult, he noted.

"Lots of criminal groups are producing these drugs here in Quebec," 
Lamarre said. "They don't need to import anything to make these drugs 
so there is less risk and fewer transport costs.

"It is very cheap to produce and the profit margin is very high."

On Feb. 8, Montreal police dismantled a drug lab in Ste. Sophie, 65 
kilometres north of Montreal, and seized 220,000 pills of ecstasy and 
speed, which are sold on the street for $10 to $15 a pill.

Cops busted pill presses in Laval and Terrebonne, and three 
warehouses for the chemicals needed to make the drugs (in St. Esprit, 
St. Roch de l'achigan and in Laval).

In the same operation, police seized 17 kilograms of pure 
methamphetamines, enough to produce about 375,000 pills of ecstasy, 
and 27 kilos of amphetamines, enough to make 600,000 pills of speed.

In all of 2010 (the last year for which data are available), Montreal 
cops seized 108,862 ecstasy pills and 219,395 speed pills. Shelbe 
BensonFuller, a spokesperson for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, 
said border agents in Massena, N.Y., discovered 36,000 pills of 
ecstasy worth an estimated $1 million in a rental car coming from 
Canada last April 16. The car's three occupants included a person 
wanted in Canada for attempted murder, BensonFuller added.

Tests of ecstasy recently seized in the Montreal region reveal it is 
not the more dangerous PPMA available in Western Canada that led to 
eight-ecstacy related deaths in Calgary in 2011. The local drug is 
basically MDMA, or a mixture of ecstasy and speed, Lamarre said.

Karen Fortin, a counsellor at the Dollard Cormier drug rehab centre 
in Montreal, said statistics show local drug use overall has dropped 
since 2006.

Although ecstasy and speed are not as addictive as cocaine, they do a 
lot of harm, she said.

"Especially for people with low self-esteem. They give you a 
tremendous sense of confidence for about six hours. Then you can have 
a terrible depression for two or three days.

"People coming down off it often think, 'Nobody loves me.' "
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