ANALYSIS DELAYED IN ECSTASY BUST

Cases Involving Drug Piling Up, Chemist Says

It will be several months before a report on an alleged Markham
ecstasy laboratory is complete because of a mounting backlog of cases,
says Health Canada's main expert on illegal drug labs.

``The whole lab is backed up,'' said John Hugel, a senior chemist.
``I'm still working on this year's other cases.''

Analysis of substances gathered Friday from a raid on a house on
Larksmere Ct., which police allege was one of the province's largest
ecstasy-producing operations, won't happen until October at the
earliest, he says.

Police say they seized millions of dollars worth of chemicals used to
produce the drug.

Hugel is the only chemist at Health Canada whose chief responsibility
is to investigate substances found at clandestine labs. The
significant increase in recent years of cases involving ecstasy labs,
fuelled by rising demand and aggressive policing, has kept his hands
full.

``If the trend continues, Health Canada will have difficulty dealing
with this,'' Hugel said.

Ecstasy, or MDMA (methylanedioxymethamphetamine), is an illegal
amphetamine-based drug that has a euphoric and mildly hallucinatory
effect on users. It is popular among teenagers attending all-night
rave dance parties.

Samples from every drug bust in the province are sent to the Ontario
branch of the federal health department's drug analysis service. Each
month, the staff, including six chemists, scrutinize an average of
2,100 exhibits - each containing a varying amount of suspected
narcotics - and prepare court reports.

>From 1996 to 1999, the number of ecstasy exhibits analyzed each year
jumped to 460 from 25.

Tohro James Miyamoto and Allen Kong, both 21, are to appear in court
tomorrow on charges in connection with the Markham raid. If the men
are denied bail, police say they may ask Health Canada to speed up its
analysis.