Pubdate: Mon, 25 Jun 2012
Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC)
Copyright: 2012 The Vancouver Sun
Contact: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/letters.html
Website: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477
Author: Tamsyn Burgmann

ECSTASY TRADE HAS DEADLY CONSEQUENCES

Health officers urge policy reform to cut out dealers who often
substitute other drugs

Glowsticks, fuzzy pants and DJ Johnny Fiasco were the recipe for a
Calgary rave back in the late' 90s when it was Kevin's job to supply
the key ingredient: white-powder-packed capsules that stoked touchy-
feely-dance vibes in partiers until dawn. But after a Canada-wide
RCMP bust cleared out stockpiles of ecstasy one August weekend in
1997, the 19- year-old dealer lost his usual source. So he scooped up
200 pills from some guy in the back of a car, having no clue they were
the hallucinogen PCP cut with horse tranquillizer.

"We ended up with a party full of sick kids," said the 34- year-old,
who now lives in Vancouver and whose name has been changed. "We were
pulling 15- year-old girls out of the bathroom who were puking their
guts out, had no idea who they were, where they were, what they were
doing."

Similar misadventure have occurred countless times in the ensuing
years, the latest a rash of 16 deaths across Western Canada in nine
months from an ecstasy batch laced with PMMA, a chemical not
previously seen here. Several top public health officials are now
proposing a rethink of illegal-drug policies they say exacerbates a
global problem involving ecstasy, one that even the White House says
is made in Canada, specifically B. C.

But the suggestion for dialogue about a careful, science-based
crafting of new health-oriented regulations comes at the same time
the federal government has taken the opposite course with its omnibus
crime bill.

In mid- March, the class of drugs that includes the substance MDMA -
considered the pure and original form of ecstasy - was bumped up to a
Schedule I drug under Bill C- 10, giving it heightened status
alongside heroin and cocaine.

The boost has the health officers and other advocates of change
warning the tough-on crime approach will not curb street ecstasy's
use or its associated dangers, but instead will further play into the
hands of organized crime British Columbia's provincial health officer
Dr. Perry Kendall and his colleagues argue the proliferation of dirty
street ecstasy and ecstasy overdoses are a direct consequence of
criminalization and prohibition.

They want a public conversation around combating it.

"We need to involve multiple viewpoints," Kendall told The Canadian
Press. "And then we need, in an ideal world, to come up with a
regulatory regime which would minimize many of the harmful impacts
which I see in the current regulatory regime."

Responsible for deaths

Police say street ecstasy is killing an average of 20 British
Columbians each year.

Kendall said the drug's risks arise when users have no idea what dose
they're taking, don't understand MDMA's known health effects and don't
know whether the pills are actually MDMA or some other brew of toxic
chemicals.

"This is a very emotive, controversial topic for a lot of people," he
said.

"Do I see a consensus coming out of it in the short run? No ... But I
still think that it would be a conversation that's worth having from
an evidence-based perspective."

One "hypothetical" way users could obtain ecstasy, he said, would be
through licensed, government-regulated stores. Under such a scheme,
the drug would still be illegal to minors, and consumers might be
permitted to only buy a certain amount each week or month. Promotional
advertising would not occur.

He likened the scenario to the way booze was sold to him in Toronto in
1972.

"When I wanted to buy liquor, I went into a government-run store,
there was a list of products on the wall. I went to a man who was
behind the counter, he wore a brown overall," Kendall said in an
earlier interview. "I wrote what I wanted on a piece of paper. He came
back with a brown paper bag, and I left with my product."

Kendall has co- authored an open paper urging an evidence based
re-evaluation of federal illegal-drug policies with the provincial
health officers of Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia. He also joined scores
of B. C.' s physicians in signing a discussion paper in late 2011 that
recommends all levels of government "review, evaluate and update their
psychoactive substances related laws."

He and the host of doctors argue that implementing public health-
oriented regulations would decrease usage rates, as has occurred in
Portugal and the Netherlands. They say that just as ending the alcohol
prohibition took booze out of the Mafia's hands, it would gut the gangs.

That would vastly reduce sales to minors, they contend, and prevent
deaths because even if teens did use, they would more likely be
getting a cleaner product.

New approach

"It means getting away from ideologically based approaches," said Dr.
Robert Strang, Nova Scotia's chief medical health officer, in a recent
interview.

"I'm challenging the government to say we have to do things
differently, because our current approach is clearly not working."

Since last July, 10 people in Alberta, five in B. C. and one in
Saskatchewan have died from PMMA- adulterated ecstasy, and a slew of
others have suffered non-fatal overdoses.

Arrests of two alleged small time traffickers were made in February,
though as recently as early May, RCMP in Penticton were warning the
toxic batch had surfaced there.

RCMP have targeted the domestic ecstasy inventory by raiding synthetic
production houses and by cracking down on the supply channels of the
chemicals that go into it. Investigators say those strategies have
made some dents.

The police line is firm: no amount of ecstasy is safe.

The federal Conservatives' rescheduling of amphetamines such as MDMA
generally means dealers now face one-year mandatory minimum
sentences, producers face two years and harsher punishment will be
meted out in instances of possession for trafficking or exporting.

Unlike a decade ago, pills on the street are much cheaper, Smartie-
like tablets of pressed powder stamped with decals like the Olympic
rings. B. C., the province stirring the pot on drug policy reform,
also happens to be North America's ecstasy kitchen.

The United Nations, the White House, the U. S. Drug Enforcement Agency
and the RCMP have fingered the province as a global manufacturing hub,
where mainly Chinese gangs cook up the substance for wholesale
distribution across international borders.

The gangs source the precursor chemicals - like MDP2P which comes from
the sassafras plant - from connections in China, smuggling it through
Vancouver ports, according to an 80- page report in January from U. S.
President Barack Obama's drug czar. Vietnamese, Indian, Eastern
European and outlaw motorcycle gangs are often traffickers.

Significant threats

"Marijuana and ecstasy remain the most significant Canadian drug
threats to the United States," the Office of National Drug Control
Policy said in the report.

It says that ecstasy tablets are no longer just MDMA, but rather a
"cocktail of chemicals," as Canadian organized crime groups
"demonstrate a willingness to utilize whichever chemicals are readily
available to them."

Pills that mimic MDMA, resembling candy or children's vitamins and
seized around U. S. schools, were traced back to Canadian sources,
states the report.

The Blaine, Wash., port of entry, southwest of Vancouver, has led the
country in border ecstasy seizures for the past five years, said Dave
Rodriguez, director of the Seattle-based Northwest High Intensity
Drug Trafficking Area.

He said it's only within the past four years or so that Canada's
organized crime groups began pumping out the drug in massive
quantities, bypassing a former supply route through the
Netherlands.

"They set up labs in British Columbia, they got in the tools and the
dies and the formula and the expertise, so that they didn't have to
import any longer, they just made it there," he said.

Four million ecstasy tablets were seized at the Canada- U. S. border
in 2010, up from two million in 2006, said D. E. A special agent
Jeffrey Scott in Washington, D. C.

He doesn't believe its regulation will reduce gang
activity.

"If you take one substance away from them it's not likely that they're
suddenly going to go run McDonald's or go open a retail store," he
said. "They're just going to shift to another illicit substance."

Those intimately familiar with the drug, dubbed "Dr. Death" in some
circles, say they wouldn't touch the stuff today.

"For me, MDMA is white. It's not purple, it's not pink, it's not blue.
It's fluffy, it smells like delicious licorice," said Kevin, who began
capping the powder on his dining room table himself after the party
poisoning incident, but has long since stopped.

"But you don't find that any more. It's just a bunch of crap that some
dude in his basement, who owns a print shop, is scraping into pills -
pressing them and then selling them for 50 cents apiece."

He believes crushing the drug's illicit aura would benefit
society.

"You can ask any drug dealer," he said.

"They will tell you that if they have a good product - and a bad
product that's cheaper - 85 to 90 per cent of their clients, they're
going to spend the extra money for the product that's going to be clean."
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MAP posted-by: Matt