€3m ecstasy haul is the biggest in nine years
Both agencies estimate the haul has a street value in the region of €3.5m.
Gardaí and drug workers are reporting greater availability of the dance drug in the last year-and-a-half and believe this massive haul was, in part, destined for the thriving summer festival market.
European experts have reported a rise in the production of MDMA, the pure ecstasy chemical, following a relative drought of precursor chemicals needed to make it in recent years.
During yesterday’s operation, detectives from the Garda National Drug Unit, supported by customs officers, also uncovered 80kg of cannabis herb, also a very significant quantity, valued in the region of €1.6m.
The drugs were found during a search of a premises at Rosemount Business Park in Blanchardstown at 7.30pm on Tuesday.
A 41-year-old male was arrested and detained under of Section 2 of the Criminal Justice (Drug Trafficking) Act 1996 at Blanchardstown Garda Station, where he can be questioned for a week.
There have only been a handful of ecstasy seizures as big as this. In Jan 2004, 500,000 tablets were seized in Co Laois, while 560,000 tablets were confiscated in Co Meath in 2003.
The haul follows the interception of around 100,000 ecstasy tablets just over a week ago and 40,000 tablets in April, both in north Dublin. It brings this year’s total to around 500,000 — by far the biggest amount since 2004 and 2003, when seizures hit a peak.
With the growth of cocaine throughout the 2000s, followed by the massive popularity of legal highs towards the end of the decade, the demand for ecstasy waned between 2006 and 2011.
“The ecstasy market is booming at the moment,” a drugs worker in Dublin city centre told the Irish Examiner. “A lot of young fellas are saying there’s a lot of it around and that it is quite strong.”
He said they told him a tablet was selling for between €4 and €6 on the street. He said the low price of the drug, and the high purity, meant it was a cheap option for young people.
Drugs researcher Tim Bingham described the haul as “substantial” but expressed caution as to the exact content of the tablets until toxicology results were back.
“These tablets were most probably destined for the various music events this summer,” he said.
“I would expect that now these have been seized this will provide an opportunity for someone else to come in and fill this gap in the market.”
Mystery still surrounds what happened to one of the two Louth mothers hospitalised last week after taking drugs.
Health officials in the North-East initially said the women, both in their 20s, were suspected of having consumed contaminated cannabis.
But separate tests on cannabis seized from one of the women’s houses and tests on their blood have not found any contaminants.
As reported in the Irish Examiner last Saturday, gardaí believe one of the women suffered respiratory failure as a result of sniffing aerosol deodorant. She also consumed benzodiazepines, a legal tranquilliser drug, which may have contributed.
Tests on the second woman have not clarified what caused her severe reaction. Garda sources said there was “no way a spliff could cause it” and believe something else must have been involved.
Gardaí found no evidence of any other drugs at the location where that woman had been partying. It is understood the house was clean when officers arrived.
Gardaí haven’t ruled out the possibility that some form of synthetic cannabis may have been smoked.
The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction said there are cases of synthetic cannabis being sprayed onto cannabis resin and cannabis herb to increase potency.
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