CANADA NOW MAJOR MAKER OF ECSTASY

Local Production Supplying International Market, RCMP Expert Says

The seizure of 167,000 ecstasy pills that were being smuggled into the
U.S. indicates Canada is becoming a major manufacturer of the illegal
drug, an RCMP drug expert said Thursday.

A man and a woman were taken into custody by U.S. authorities Monday
after 52 kilograms of the drug were found in a pickup truck at the
Lynden border crossing.

"The trend is Canada is now becoming a source country," Cpl. Scott
Rintoul of the RCMP drug awareness service said Thursday. "They are
now producing ecstasy locally and they are supplying the international
market.

"I don't think it's going back to Europe, but it is certainly going
domestically across the country, and into the United States."

U.S. authorities along the Washington state border have seized more
than 500,000 doses of ecstasy already this year -- nearly double the
258,026 pills seized last year and more than 10 times the 2003 total
of 47,686.

Rintoul said Asian organized crime interests are increasingly involved
in the production of ecstasy, and noted 1,800 kilograms of a precursor
chemical used to make the drug were seized here last year in a
shipment from Asia.

But the flow of drugs and related chemicals has dwindled.

"Possibly because of good work by customs overseas and locally, we're
deterring the shipments, or they've realized it's cheaper to make
their own," he said. "Either way, we're now starting to see local
production."

Rintoul noted that several large ecstasy-manufacturing labs have
recently been raided and closed down by police in Ontario.

He said he will be particularly interested to see the chemical
analysis of the ecstasy seized on Monday.

"What we've seen over the last four or five or six years is that pure
ecstasy in tablet form is being produced in Asia," he said. "The
ecstasy that's a so-called cocktail that contains ecstasy and
methamphetamine or perhaps ephedrine or caffeine, those are made locally.

"For some reason, the market here in western Canada demands ecstasy
mixed with meth, so that's what we're basically seeing."

Rintoul also noted that while seizures of steroids have dropped from
320,893 doses in 2003 to 149,329 doses in 2004, there is still "a huge
black market" in steroids, which are sought for their ability to
create muscle mass in a short time.

"We're seeing more of the oral kind -- the tablets," he
said.

DRUGS SEIZED ENTERING CANADA:

Authorities meet with mixed success in the B.C. and the Yukon
region

2004 2003

Heroin 15.37 kilos 6.51 kilos

(22 seizures) (27 seizures)

Opium 20.92 kilos 40.61 kilos

(38 seizures) (24 seizures)

Cocaine 321.4 kilos 10.33 kilos

(121 seizures) (126 seizures)

Marijuana 47 kilos 349.2 kilos

(1,233 seizures) (1,186 seizures)

Ecstasy 10,316 doses 218,109.25 doses

(49 seizures) (36 seizures)

Steroids 149,329 doses 320,893 doses

(278 seizures) (398 seizures)

Total Seizures 2,174 2,232

Source: Canadian Border Services Agency, Vancouver Sun