ECSTASY EXPLOSION HAS NO BOUNDARIES

The eight drums impounded at Frankfurt airport were meant to contain
acetone bound for a reputable Hamburg chemicals company.

The exporter's papers were in order and the customs officials, who had
regularly processed similar shipments in the past, saw nothing suspicious.

But German intelligence agents had been tracking the consignment for
weeks and knew otherwise.

The drums contained 452 kgs of piperonyl methylketone (PMK), better
known as a synthesised derivative of the sassafras tree whose bark is
used to make aromatherapy oils; better known as a banned insecticide
in the US; and even better known as the raw material for MDMA, the
chemical name for the dance drug ecstasy.

While the German agents could afford themselves a pat on the back,
they knew the find was small beer. Intelligence sources suggest 100
tonnes of PMK are smuggled into the European Union every year - enough
to make 100 million tablets.

All of which is good news for someone like Jimmy who has been dealing
drugs for more than 13 years - right from the time ecstasy hit
Britain's club culture to the current day, when it has become the
illicit substance of choice for the twentysomethings who pop millions
of pills each week.

In his time as a dealer Jimmy has seen the price of pills plunge
dramatically.

'In 1990 a dealer would buy around 1,000 pills for between UKP6 and
UKP7 each. Today you're paying between 40p and 70p a pill,' he says.

Just like any other mass market product, ecstasy is subject to the
laws of supply and demand, and prices have tumbled as production of
the synthetic drug has moved from a cottage industry to a
sophisticated, industrialised global business that is worth billions
of pounds.

What the dealers have lost in terms of margins they have more than
made up for in volume as clubbers consume the increasingly poor
quality drug in ever greater numbers to achieve the desired effect.

In the Eighties most of the tablets in circulation contained pure
MDMA. Today nearly half of all tablets on sale contain no MDMA at all,
and those that do have had the dosage reduced to such a level that
some clubbers routinely take four or five tablets each night.

According to Jimmy that means there is still good profit to be had
from dealing ecstasy, which is now affordable to those on even the
tightest budgets. 'Whereas 10 years ago you would be paying UKP20
a pill in a club, today you can buy one for as little as UKP2.50,' Jimmy
says.

Jimmy might not know it but these days he is effectively a salesman
for the Triads, the Chinese gangs which have all but cornered the
market in the production of the raw materials needed to make ecstasy
and cleverly exploited China's burgeoning trade relationships with
other countries to distribute the chemicals around the world.

Today a handful of Chinese chemical companies are practically the only
firms to produce PMK, ostensibly for use in the perfume industry.
These firms benefit from the fact that China is the world's biggest
producer of sassafras oil, way ahead of its nearest rivals, Brazil and
Vietnam, whose supplies are thought to be diminishing.

But apart from perfume, PMK has few legal uses: these days almost all
of it is used to produce ecstasy and other synthetic drugs. US Drug
Enforcement officials have become so alarmed at PMK shipments that
they have practically banned the chemical from being imported into the
country.

Such was their concern that two years ago they signed a resolution
with the European Union to crack down and monitor PMK shipments.

Yet this has had little if any effect. Triad gangs have created a
series of front companies to buy the chemical and ship it on to
ecstasy factories around the world, giving them profit rates of up to
3,000 per cent.

Numerous internet sites market the chemicals to eager importers in
places as diverse as Mexico, Indonesia and Europe.

Many of the factories or 'kitchen laboratories', as the smaller
ecstasy production centres are known, have been based in Belgium and
the Netherlands while a handful have sprung up in the UK, centred on
Liverpool.

A basic ecstasy lab - consisting of heaters, distillation flasks and
funnels with access to running water, electricity and a waste pipe -
can easily be built in the average toilet.

Apparatus costing around UKP4,000 can be used to turn out several
thousand pills a week. Labs are often packed up in the back of vans
and moved from one location to another every few weeks.

The factories are often backed by Israeli- and Russian-organised crime
syndicates who then ship the finished product on to Eastern Europe,
Asia and North America, where it has become hugely popular among 18-
to 20-year-olds - so much so that they prefer it to cocaine and cannabis.

In Britain a massive, hugely lucrative industry has developed,
dedicated to bringing vast quantities of ecstasy across the Channel.

A United Nations report published last week paints an astonishing
picture of just how big the industry, now producing 125 tonnes of
ecstasy a year, has become in only a decade. The UN estimates eight
million people in the world now take ecstasy, a rise of 70 per cent on
five years ago.

The combined ecstasy and amphetamines market is worth $65 billion a
year, and more people consume so-called designer drugs than heroin and
cocaine combined.

Part of the problem facing law enforcement agencies is that unlike
cocaine or heroin, ecstasy is produced and consumed within the same
region, making it much more difficult to track.

'The danger posed by synthetic drugs is advancing relentlessly,' the
report noted. 'Access to chemicals, growing demand, corrupt officials,
poor law enforcement, lack of extradition and/or light sentencing...
has led to a greater involvement of criminal groups with ruthless
forms of marketing.'

Less than 1kg of ecstasy sold to dealers will pay for a small-scale
pill factory. Increasingly, though, the crime gangs are looking to
scale up their operations.

The UN has detected a rise in the number of ecstasy factories capable
of producing up to 100 kg of the drug each week. This is enough to
make a million ecstasy pills, or four per cent of the global weekly
demand - a demand which shows no signs of slowing.

Early hours in a popular men-only gay club in central London finds the
dance floor heaving with sweat-drenched bodies. All ages, walks of
life and looks are represented - the uniting factor is the widespread
use of ecstasy. Nowhere is the phenomenal rise of the drug more
apparent than on the gay scene where it is considered an almost
essential part of any night out.

'Basically, pretty much everyone here is on it,' says Patrick, 32, a
regular at the club. 'Some people are going off it and getting into
ketamine instead, but that's a completely different kind of buzz. If
you've been out the night before and you want to carry on here, then E
is what you need.

'The short-term ones are worrying. I don't like the hangover. If I
have a big weekend I can get really tearful on the Tuesday or
Wednesday for no reason, or I get really snappy.'

Some experts say the rise in ecstasy production has led to fatal
results. There were 12 deaths in 1996. Last year there were 72. One in
six people who died had not taken any other drug. This clears up the
debate once and for all - ecstasy alone can kill, say experts.

Antonia Maria Costa, executive director of the UN's Office on Drugs
and Crime, says: 'Designer technology gives young people the false
promise of becoming (briefly) "master of the universe".

'Law enforcement alone cannot control this. Since these changes are
global, society as a whole needs to share the responsibility of
reducing both demand and supply.'

But with an ecstasy pill now costing less than a pint of lager this
conclusion is too little, too late.