Pubdate: Tue, 26 Jun 2012
Source: Calgary Herald (CN AB)
Copyright: 2012 Canwest Publishing Inc.
Contact: http://www2.canada.com/calgaryherald/letters.html
Website: http://www.calgaryherald.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/66
Author: Tamsyn Burgmann
Page: A11

OTTAWA, HEALTH OFFICIALS DISAGREE ON APPROACH TO COMBAT ECSTASY

Tories favour tougher rules over drug policy reform

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 has repeated 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 rethinking of
current illegal-drug policies they assert spurs on 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 polar
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 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 its scourge, similar
to the ongoing pot debate.

"We need to involve multiple viewpoints," Kendall told the Canadian
Press this week. "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."

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 have
no clue of 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, somewhat similar to
present-day liquor sales. He said that under such a potential scheme,
the drug would still be illegal to minors, and consumers would perhaps
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."

Other possibilities for how sales might be structured include behind
the counter, like the sales of nicorette gum, or by prescription -
although Kendall said that option wasn't likely to fly with doctors
because it wouldn't be for medicinal use.

Kendall is not advocating one particular solution, but believes
society would benefit from a revised psychoactive drug-control system,
he said.

"If society decided with its wisdom that it was going to address
substances based on their inherent harms, you might well see both
alcohol and a drug like ecstasy manufactured under strict controls and
sold under strict controls," he said.

"I don't think the issue is a technical one. The issue is probably one
of the political. How would you get society to look at it like that?"

Kendall has co-written 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 like
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.

"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, B.C., were warning
the toxic batch has 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. An interview
request and list of questions for federal Justice Minister Rob
Nicholson garnered a brief statement.

"These drugs are harmful to users and society and contribute
significantly to violent crime," Julie Di Mambro, the minister's
spokeswoman, said in a May e-mail. "Our government has no interest in
seeing any of these drugs legalized or made more easily available to
youth." But advocates say it's already in teens' hands, and the
Tories' move will keep it that way.

Unlike a decade ago, pills on the street are much cheaper,
Smartie-like tablets of pressed powder stamped with decals like the
Olympic rings.

The same province stirring the pot on drug policy reform also happens
to be North America's ecstasy kitchen.

B.C. has been fingered by the UN, the White House, the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Adminstration and the RCMP 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.

"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 to Canadian sources, states
the report.
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