Straight from the Lower Mainland, a new, more lethal brand of MDMA
Deadly drug linked to 10 recent deaths in southern Alberta, five more in B.C.
CALGARY – If history is any guide, the ecstasy that has killed 10 people in southern Alberta since last July likely came from B.C.’S Lower Mainland.
Law enforcement agencies around the world have identified Canada as a major exporter of ecstasy, and the Lower Mainland is considered one of the main places where it’s made.
Ecstasy is not a new drug, nor are deaths and illnesses associated with taking it. What is new – and what has elevated concern among police and public health officials – is a spate of deaths among people who have taken ecstasy containing a highly toxic drug, para-methoxymethamphetamine (PMMA).
The provincial medical examiner’s office has linked 10 recent deaths in southern Alberta to ecstasy containing PMMA. In B.C., officials have linked five deaths in the past six months to PMMA.
Because ecstasy is an illegal drug made and sold by criminal organizations, it’s difficult for authorities to say for certain why Canada is a major player and why PMMA has recently shown up in cases involving deaths and serious overdoses.
Police and drug experts have theories, mostly centred on the availability of the substances, known as precursors, used to make ecstasy.
The main precursor in ecstasy is safrole, an oil taken from the sassafras plant. Criminals use chemical processes that change safrole’s molecular structure, eventually resulting in Methylenedioxymethamphetamine, the drug known as ecstasy.
Safrole and the products it is converted into on the way to becoming ecstasy are controlled substances in Canada, meaning their import and export must be documented and licensed.
Still, the rules for precursors are less strict here than in the U.S., leading authorities there to claim that Canadian crime groups are getting large amounts and diverting them into the illegal manufacture of ecstasy.
U.S. agencies responsible for border enforcement in Washington state intercepted 1.4 million doses in 2010 and 2.6 million doses the year before. During the same time period, U.S. authorities didn’t find a single ecstasy lab in the Pacific Northwest region.
It’s a similar story in Alberta, where police haven’t discovered any large-scale ec- stasy labs in recent memory.
Authorities said there is an added element of risk because PMMA is slow-acting, making some people more prone to take large amounts if the effects of the ecstasy don’t kick in as quickly as they’re accustomed to.
Officials in Alberta and B.C. began noticing deaths and hospitalizations linked to PMMA in mid-2011, raising the issue of why someone began putting it in ecstasy.
Without proof of any more complicated reasons, experts have offered a simple explanation: supply and demand.
If supplies of the usual precursors became scarce for some reason, manufacturers would probably turn to something similar.
“You have groups that are waiting for the next cook, the next quantity to come, so they’ll use the next best thing,” said Martin Bouchard, a Simon Fraser University criminology professor who co-wrote a recent study on ecstasy and methamphetamine trafficking for Public Safety Canada.
Although Bouchard’s research takes issue with U.S. and UN studies that rank Canada as one of the world’s top exporters of ecstasy, he said large seizures made abroad leave little doubt Canadian organized crime groups are capable of making vast quantities.
“Certainly, we’re a major player based on our population,” he said.