ALTERED ECSTASY FROM CANADA FLOODING U.S.

White House Issues Warning About More Addictive Form

The White House is blaming Canadian drug traffickers for flooding
American cities with a pumped-up, addictive form of the club-drug
Ecstasy and has issued a public health warning over the "dangerous new
drug threat coming from Canada."

Law enforcement agencies have seen dramatic increases in the number of
seized tablets of Ecstasy that are laced with methamphetamine, a
mixture that raises the concern of police and health officials,
according to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

"Progress against Ecstasy availability and use is in jeopardy of being
rolled back by Canadian criminal organizations. Desperate to develop
their client base, they are dangerously altering a product for which
demand by youth and young adults had plummeted, and are exploiting
vulnerabilities along our shared border," said John Walters, the White
House drug czar.

"This is alarming for the youth of both Canada and the United
States."

Lacing pills of Ecstasy, the popular street name for the
Methylenedioxymethamphetamine or MDMA for short, with the less
expensive and easier to produce methamphetamine, often called speed,
boosts profits for the traffickers, makes the pills more addictive
and, according to the U.S. drug office: "effectively gives a dangerous
'facelift' to a designer drug that had fallen out of fashion with
young American drug users."

Mr. Walters calls the combination of methamphetamine with the base
drug Ecstasy "Extreme Ecstasy" and says intelligence reports show it
is being manufactured in large volume in Canada and smuggled across
the border into the U.S. northern states. From there the pills are
being distributed throughout the United States.

There is a production capacity in Canada of more than two million
tablets of Ecstasy a week, the U.S. office says, quoting RCMP data.

There has been a ten-fold increases in the amount of Ecstasy from Canada
found entering
the United States: from 568,220 dosage units of Ecstasy seized federally in
the 10
northern border states in 2003 to 5,485,619 dosage units seized in 2006.

More than 55% of the tablets seized and tested in the United States
last year were found to contain methamphetamine, the White House drug
office reported.

Yesterday's release of the alert by the top American anti-drug
official took a senior RCMP drug officer by surprise but he does not
dispute the message.

"He is not wrong. But this is nothing new. We've been telling them
this for years," said Superintendent Ron Allen, head of the RCMP's
Drug Section for the Greater Toronto Area.

In the summer of 2006, for instance, Canadian police seized 10,000
pills sold as Ecstasy that were destined for New York, and a
laboratory test found they contained 80% methamphetamine.

"Why would our dealers want to mask meth? We get different opinions.
One that rings true is that taking meth and taking Ecstasy gives you
some of the same qualities -- some of the same things happen to you --
but meth is much more addictive, thus you create a better market. You
become addicted to it and you want more of it," he said.

Others dispute the White House contention of the mixture being a
trendy "facelift" that might boost sales, however.

"Meth in Ecstasy tablets is generally considered bad, a downgrade. If
someone wants meth, they buy meth," said Earth Erowid, president and
co-founder of the EcstasyData lab testing project based in California,
a non-profit laboratory pill testing program.

"Adulterated Ecstasy tablets are a known problem among those who buy
and sell Ecstasy." Mr. Erowid also said the name "Extreme Ecstasy" is
not a term used by drug consumers.

"I'd never seen it before in this context. I would say it is unique to
their press release."

Ecstasy use in Canada and the United States rose in the late 1990s
alongside the popularity of "rave" culture, the large dance and
electronic music parties where Ecstasy was consumed in large quantities.

"Due to the well-co-ordinated national and international response,
Ecstasy use in the United States diminished in the early 2000s," says
the White House release.

"However, recent data show progress against the drug has ebbed. The
number of people in the U.S. who reported that they tried Ecstasy for
the first time during the past year increased 40% between 2005 and
2006 -- from 615,000 to 860,000," the release says.

"These increases coincide with increased trafficking of Ecstasy from
Canada."