Gangs find way around ecstasy laws
Drug’s manufacturers switch to fake tablets linked to deaths in B.C. and Alberta
New tough laws cracking down on ecstasy production in B.C. had the unintended consequences of opening the door to more toxic fake ecstasy pills, a criminologist says.
The synthetic drug PMMA wasn’t on the radar for police or the public until last week, when the B.C. Coroners Service announced the “new” unregulated chemical had been linked to at least five ecstasyrelated deaths in B.C. in the past six months, and a number of deaths in Alberta.
Production of ecstasy in B.C., traditionally associated with the compound MDMA, had fallen off since the possession of precursors became illegal in 2011, according to the RCMP’S federal drug section.
B.C. drug gangs quickly changed horses in order to fill orders, said Simon Fraser University criminologist Rob Gordon.
“There is a market, and it was limited in the key commodities, so the producers have found alternative means of maintaining the market,” Gordon said. “Now they’ve shot themselves in the foot by doing it, because they’ve cooked up something that is quite toxic.”
PMMA was first associated with an ecstasy death in 1993, according to a study completed in the European Union in 2003.
Producers are combining PMMA with a substance called PMA “in fake ‘ecstasy’ tablets . . . aiming to simulate the MDMA effects expected by users,” the study said.
According to the study: “Substituting for MDMA could be more costeffective for illicit producers. In fact, the precursors for PMA/PMMA are easier to obtain and less strictly controlled by legislation than those for MDMA.”
Despite the higher risk associated with PMMA in comparison with MDMA, officials in B.C. say they are reluctant to give the impression that ecstasy is ever safe. Therefore, they won’t say what colours or logos are associated with current samples of Pmma-based pills.
According to the European study, in 2003 logos reading “Mitsubishi,” “Jumbo” or “E” were most commonly found on tablets containing PMMA/PMA.
In social media conversations on Tuesday, some were blaming recent deaths on drug policy.
“Recent cases of ecstasy overdose in Alberta and B.C. point the finger at the government’s drug prohibition that forces cooks to use PMMA instead of MDMA,” one man posted on Facebook on Tuesday.