cannabisnews.com: DEA Forges Foreign Alliances To Combat Ecstasy





DEA Forges Foreign Alliances To Combat Ecstasy
Posted by FoM on November 23, 2001 at 13:54:38 PT
By Jerry Seper, The Washington Times
Source: Washington Times
The Drug Enforcement Administration has forged a new alliance with law enforcement authorities in Europe and Canada to combat a dramatic rise in the production, availability and use of the "party drug" known as Ecstasy.   Drug agents from the Bundeskriminalamt (BKA or Federal Criminal Investigation Agency in Germany), and representatives from Canada, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Belgium and the Czech Republic attended an international law enforcement conference at the DEA academy in Quantico, Va., this week to discuss Ecstasy trafficking.
 The weeklong session focused on rising Ecstasy concerns in Europe, Canada and the United States — including trafficking trends and the augmentation of coordinated plans to stop the trafficking of the drug between Europe and North America.   Ecstasy is the popular name for the stimulant methyldiocymethamphetamine (MDMA), which has hallucinogenic properties. Used by young people at rock concerts, all-night club parties knows as "raves" and at private parties, it is designed to suppress the need to eat, drink or sleep. It can cause loss of consciousness, seizures from heat strokes or heart failure, brain damage and death.   "This conference underscores the importance of international and multiagency cooperation in fighting criminal organizations responsible for distributing hundreds of thousands of MDMA tablets worldwide," said DEA Administrator Asa Hutchinson.   Ecstasy was first synthesized in 1912 by a German company to be used as an appetite suppressant. In the 1970s, it was used to facilitate psychotherapy by a small group of therapists in the United States. Illicit use of the drug did not become popular until the late 1980s and early 1990s. Ecstasy is frequently used in combination with other drugs.   Clandestine laboratories that produce Ecstasy operate throughout Western Europe, primarily in the Netherlands and Belgium, and they are known to manufacture significant quantities of the drug in tablet, capsule or powder form.   The DEA said that while the vast majority of Ecstasy consumed domestically is produced in Europe, a limited number of laboratories operate in the United States. In addition, in recent years, Israeli organized-crime syndicates, some composed of Russian emigres associated with organized crime in Russia, have forged relationships with Western European traffickers and gained control over a significant share of the European market.   The Israeli syndicates are currently the primary source to U.S. distribution gangs, the DEA said.   DEA officials said overseas trafficking organizations smuggle the drug in shipments of 10,000 or more tablets via express-mail services, couriers aboard commercial airline flights and — more recently — through air-freight shipments from several major European cities to cities in the United States.   The drug is sold in bulk quantities at the midwholesale level in the United States for about $8 per pill. The retail price of Ecstasy sold in clubs in the United States remains steady at between $20 and $30 per pill.   The DEA said Ecstasy traffickers use brand names and logos as marketing tools to distinguish their product from that of competitors. The logos are produced to coincide with holidays or special events. Among the more popular logos are butterflies, lightning bolts and four-leaf clovers.   The National Drug intelligence Center (NDIC), a Justice Department agency assigned to collect strategic domestic counterdrug information, recently warned that the production, availability and use of Ecstasy had increased at an alarming rate, making its potential threat equal to that of cocaine and heroin.   "Of the club drugs, none presents a greater threat than MDMA or ecstasy," said the NDIC in a report in August. "When coupled with the growing involvement of organized-crime groups in production, transportation and distribution, the threat of MDMA potentially equals that of more traditional drugs."   DEA agents and NDIC investigators said the major U.S. distribution cities for Ecstasy are Atlanta, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, New Orleans, New York, Pittsburgh, San Diego and San Francisco, although use of the drug is increasing in suburban communities nationwide.   Mr. Hutchinson recently warned that the use of Ecstasy was rising and many parents of those using the drug were unaware of what was going on at parties and other gatherings where Ecstasy was being used.   "Most parents don't have law enforcement connections. So they don't know what's going on at these functions," he said. "The world of club drugs is a brand new world, particularly for parents who don't keep up on the latest fads in music and lifestyles. And that includes most of us."Complete Title: DEA Forges Foreign Alliances To Combat Spread of EcstasySource: Washington Times (DC)Author: Jerry Seper, The Washington TimesPublished: November 23, 2001Copyright: 2001 News World Communications, Inc.Contact: letters washingtontimes.comWebsite: http://www.washtimes.com/CannabisNews DEA Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/DEA.shtml
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Comment #5 posted by Tim Stone on November 24, 2001 at 20:13:54 PT
Why MDMA?
The right wing "Washington Times," owned by the Reverend Moon, makes a real hobby horse of drug war topics. They were recently crying "Treason!" because the Senate hadn't confirmed Walters as Grand Anti-Drug Epopt (He was subsequently confirmed.). I get the impression that more "reputable" mainstream media are increasingly finding virulent anti-drug articles to be a bit passe. From the drug warrior standpoint, it makes sense to go nuts about cannabis and MDMA. After all, the drug warriors' job at this point is not to "win" the drug war in any sense. Their job is to maintain support, and therefore funding, for the drug war. And the best way to do that is to go berserk about the two most commonly used illicit drugs. Precisely because they are the most commonly used, they are therefore the drugs that are best able to scare the dickens out of your average suburban soccer mom, whose support is so critical for the continuance of the drug war. 
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Comment #4 posted by john wayne on November 23, 2001 at 20:28:26 PT
lots more exstacy headed your way
if these "foreign alliances" work as well as the hundreds (thousands?) of others forged over the last 50 years.
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Comment #3 posted by Xanaralk on November 23, 2001 at 16:32:49 PT
Oil in the fire
   Regulating human nature trough criminalisation only creates criminals from good people while allowing the big ones to sell those million pills at an inflated 30$ each. The laundered money ends up at the stock market and eventually in the pockets of the richest of the rich, the criminals and even the terrorists. It doesen't have to. Just legalize. Restrict availability in any civilized way but for the sake of the Good Pardonning Christ not by criminalisation !   Also It has been documented in Nepal and in many cities of USA including New York : Chase Cannabis viciously and you are sure to end up with hard drugs like crack and heroin to take their place. Ecstasy may not be very safe , but if the DEA suceed in their crusade against it, watch out if poeple don't end up injecting themselves with ecstasy while another new drug get labelled as illegal to add to the potential of prejudice , intolerance , crime ,violence and death of the prohibition . They will ask for more laws ,They will ask for more guns , but all we must do is prove that things are only worse. What we must do is to make people realize that if they think things were better when they were young it means we did something wrong to make the problem worse in the meantime... And if they are happy now , they must always remember it so they will notice it when things will go wrong. And now the DEA American Gestapo is trying to look like the center of the world by inviting organisations around the civilised world ... Let's just hope they do something silly and get noticed ...
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Comment #2 posted by Jose Melendez on November 23, 2001 at 16:18:19 PT:
more easy jobs
This is all about job security for lazy agents and beaurocrats. They know full well it is easier to bust a few kids with pills than a murderer or rapist.I think they should go fight REAL crime.
Drug War is TREASON
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Comment #1 posted by SirReal on November 23, 2001 at 15:01:31 PT
**The Little Dutch Boys**
...will the jar heads EVER get it??...maybe if they got themselves bigger fingers to stick into the dike.
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