TAINTED ECSTASY WILL CAUSE OVERDOSES

DRUG cooks spiking ecstasy with addictive painkillers and
anti-depressants have prompted Queensland's crime watchdog to warn of
impending health carnage.

A new report to be released by the Crime and Misconduct Commission
later this year will reveal drug dealers are more than ever playing
Russian roulette with Queenslanders' lives.

CMC intelligence director Chris Keen told The Courier-Mail the Illicit
Drug Assessment Survey would raise the threat level for ecstasy for
the short-to-medium term because of predictions of further overdoses
and more users needing medical help.

Drugs Scourge In-Depth

Mr Keen said the purity of ecstasy in Queensland had halved in recent
years as drug makers pressed ecstasy with other harmful substances in
a bid to increase profits and meet demand.

"Whereas previously a tablet may have mainly contained ecstasy as the
active drug there is now an increased incidence of tablets containing
other types of drugs within one tablet," he said.

Methamphetamine an addictive stimulant anti-depression drugs and
ketamine, a human/veterinary painkiller, were often found in ecstasy.

The Courier-Mail revealed this year the toxic cocktail had led to
psychosis, seizures, organ failure and death.

Mr Keen said users wrongly believed they were taking a safe "party
drug".

"A person who believes they have overdosed from ecstasy may be shown
from a toxicology perspective to be from anti-depressive drugs because
that was major content of the tablet," Mr Keen said.

"To meet the high market demand tablets are being sold as ecstasy that
contain no ecstasy at all.

"Another result of lower purity tablets is that consumers are on
average swallowing more tablets in a session (from one to two) than
they were five to six years ago, possibly this is to seek achieving
the same high.

"This type of behaviour creates a greater risk for adverse reactions
and overdoses."

The report is undertaken by Queensland Police and Queensland Health
about every four years and helps law enforcement direct resources.

The survey is a concern for police who have not been as successful in
stamping out ecstasy as they have with speed, for which the market has
started to dry up in the wake of new laws that monitor the sale of
pseudoephedrine, used in influenza drugs.

But Mr Keen said he was hopeful a new move to regulate tablet presses
would make it harder for the black market to prosper.

A report by the Australian Crime Commission this year revealed
Australia had the highest use of ecstasy per capita in the world.