RCMP debunks claims Canada dumping 'extreme ecstasy' into U.S. market

7 hours ago

VANCOUVER - The head of the RCMP's national drug branch is debunking claims by the United States' drug czar, who claims organized crime rings in Canada are dumping dangerous, methamphetamine-laced "extreme ecstasy" into his country's illegal drug market.

Supt. Paul Nadeau said he doesn't know why John Walters, of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, would make such statements in a widely distributed news release without checking facts with Canadian officials.

"I shook my head when I read the release that they put out," said Nadeau, adding he's never heard of extreme ecstasy.

"That term is unknown to us, certainly in Canada, and I can tell you that I've spoken to law enforcement people in the U.S. and they've never heard of it either so it would appear that it's a term that somebody came up with in a boardroom in Washington, D.C."

The release has generated huge media buzz in the U.S., with some news outlets using names such as "turbo-charged ecstasy," which is supposedly flowing across the border from Canada.

In the release, issued earlier this month, Walters warns public health and safety leaders that more than 55 per cent of ecstasy samples seized in the U.S. last year contained meth, a stimulant that affects the central nervous system.

"This extreme ecstasy is a disturbing development in what has been one of the most significant international achievements against the illicit drug trade," Walters said.

"Cutting their product with less expensive methamphetamine boosts profits for Canadian ecstasy producers, likely increases the addictive potential of their product and effectively gives a dangerous 'facelift' to a designer drug that had fallen out of fashion with young American drug users."

Nadeau said there's nothing new about ecstasy - the so-called love drug that gained popularity during the 1990s rave scene - being laced with methamphetamine or other stimulants and that it's been happening for the last decade.

"According to our stats the presence of methamphetamines in ecstasy is dropping," he said, adding tests by the RCMP indicate that currently, about 35 per cent of ecstasy pills contain meth, down from 75 per cent several years ago.

"Why now do they feel the need to announce this to the world?" Nadeau said of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

Walters' office did not return calls from The Canadian Press.

But John Carnavale, an economist who worked for four previous U.S. drug czars between 1989 and 2000, said Walters is "cherry-picking data" to blame Canada.

He said that's likely because of Canada's harm-reduction approach to dealing with drug addiction, compared with the "user accountability" model American drug czars have preached.

"It was news to me that Canada was allegedly emerging as the source of supply (for ecstasy). Mexicans have really dominated the market, given the data up to now," Carnavale said.

Walters' news release could actually create demand for a form of extreme ecstasy, Carnavale said from Gaithersburg, Maryland.

"If I was a meth dealer in Canada I would certainly rebrand mine to 'extreme ecstasy.' "

Nadeau said that while the RCMP is concerned about drugs being smuggled into the United States, he disputes information in the release that is falsely attributed to the force.

"The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) estimates that the current combined production capacity of Canadian ecstasy laboratories exceeds two million tablets a week," it says.

"We have no idea where they came up with that," Nadeau said.

"In the final analysis this stuff is driven by demand," he said. "If the U.S. population has an insatiable appetite for this stuff somebody's going to be producing it for them so that's the part of the equation they never seem to talk about."

While Walters said in the release that ecstasy use had recently "plummeted" in recent years, Nadeau said that contradicts the statistics.

"If anything, in the last 10 years, synthetic drugs, whether they be ecstasy or meth, the demand for them has gone through the roof."

Scott Rintoul, spokesman for the RCMP's Drugs and Organized Crime Awareness Service in Vancouver, said there's no doubt Canada is a major synthetic drug supplier for the U.S. and other countries, with 65 per cent of the production happening in British Columbia, followed closely by Ontario.

He said that for years, producers made ecstasy from a powder imported from Europe, but that it has more recently been replaced with a cheaper liquid precursor from Asia.