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Breaking stories
Europe-wide rise in ecstasy quality triggers surge in demand
Gardaí have seen a “huge increase” in demand for ecstasy this year on the back of a surge in the production of high-quality MDMA in Europe.
By Cormac O’Keeffe
After many years of a drop-off in the manufacture of MDMA, producers have again been able to access the chemicals, known as precursors, needed to make the drug. MDMA is the chemical name for pure ecstasy. At the end of last year, the EU drug agency warned about the availability of “high-dosage tablets and high-purity powder” on the market. They also warned about the circulation of PMMA, an amphetamine, previously found in a number of “legal high” products. Since the summer of 2010, this drug has been linked to the deaths of 19 people across Europe.
Last July, the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency issued an alert over PMMA, which was circulating in both tablet and powder form, the latter in head shop stores. Figures from the State Forensic Science Laboratory here indicate a noticeable shift in the ecstasy market in recent years.
Between 2005 and 2008, gardaí seized around 100,000-150,000 tablets a year. That fell to 18,000 tablets in 2009 and just 400 in 2010. At the same time, seizures of an alternative stimulant, BZP, jumped, from 37,000 tablets in 2008 to 365,000 in 2009 and 350,000 in 2010. “For years the quality of the ecstasy, the MDMA, was just not there,” said a Garda source. “The market was flooded with drugs like BZP.”
The market began to change last year, with seizures of MDMA again reaching 100,000 tablets, as seizures of BZP tablets fell to 27,000.
But, in the last eight months, gardaí there has been a “huge increase” in ecstasy. “Ecstasy is back on the scene,” said a Garda source. “There has been an increased demand for ecstasy products because the quality of them have gone back up.” He said intelligence and information from the street had supported this view. Seizure figures to date are not available, but initial reports suggest in excess of 90,000 ecstasy tablets have been seized.
Gardaí said producers in Europe, who for years had found it difficult to get their hands on PMK, the main precursor for MDMA, due to international controls, have recently times accessed a new version of it.
Because of the rise in purity, gardaí said the price of tablets had gone back up to €10 a tablet.
Last November, the head of the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, Wolfgang Gotz, said the “tide had turned” in the long-term downward trend of ecstasy and said Europe could “expect an increase in the use of this drug” in 2012. He said ecstasy manufacturers were playing a “cat-and-mouse game” in the area of precursors and using sophisticated measures to bypass regulations.
The deaths in Kinsale are not the first ones linked to ecstasy recently. Earlier this year, inquests were held in Cork for two youths who died in 2011 after taking the drug.
Nor is it the first time the HSE has sent an alert out about the drug.
In December, it issued a warning after three people presented to Clonmel hospital with severe symptoms. They had ingested ecstasy, amphetamines, benzodiazepines, and cannabis.
* Read more:
60 gardaí working to get drug off streets
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