Where ECSTASY gets the all-clear – April 1996 Where ecstasy gets the all-clear
By the daily telegraph - Thursday April 11 1996
Copyright: the daily telegraph
As Glasgow's social services director provokes anger by claiming ecstasy is less likely to cause death than aspirin, William Greaves goes to a rave to examine how the Dutch reduce its risks.
THEY opened the doors dead on 10pm. Police stood chatting in clusters and security guards spread themselves around the cavernous indoor arena. While first-aid teams took up their positions, lasers and synchronised lights made eerie, psychedelic patterns across the floor and the music pounded the eardrums like gunfire.
The great rave of Utrecht, 25 miles south of Amsterdam, was about to get under way.
The youngsters at the head of a queue which had been growing for hours paid their £20 entry money and headed straight across the room to a trestle table, which sported a banner emblazoned with the words "SAFE HOUSE".
One of them, shaven-headed and wearing a "Lunatic Invasion Planet Earth" T-shirt, dug into a pocket of his carefully torn jeans, produced a small sachet containing four white tablets, handed over 2.5 guilders (about £1) and put one of the pills on to the table.
Herman Matser, of the state-funded Drugs Advice Bureau, smiled a welcome to his first customer of a long night. Taking a sharp knife, he scraped off a few tiny shavings on to a white plate. He reached for a rubber dropper, squeezed out a blob of colourless liquid and watched as it turned a brownish purple.
"It's MDMA, all right, and only 70 milligrams dosage. It's okay; careful how you go - and have a good night"
Picking up the pill again, he looked for a logo on its surface and measured its thickness and diameter with a micrometer. He then rifled through several pages of print-out material until he found the matching details.
"It's MDMA, all right, and only 70 milligrams dosage," he said, with a reassuring nod. "It's okay; careful how you go - and have a good night." The young man grinned conspiratorially, happy that he had not been ripped off, happy that he was indeed going to have a good night, and distributed the other three tablets to his pals. A policewoman and her male colleague looked on benignly. Last week, under pressure from Britain, Germany and other European Union countries, Dutch MPs voted to crack down on drug-related crime and the sale of narcotics. Were they, one wondered, signalling a genuine intent to fall into line with EU policies? Or was it just a bit of legislative window-dressing to appease the critics?
Here at the Vachtsebanen - a huge ice-rink in quieter times - the massing ravers seemed sublimely oblivious to the possibility of being tapped on the shoulder by any custodian of law and order.
They knew the score - just as they knew the language. MDMA meant 3.4-methylene-dioxy-methyl-amphetamine - "pure" ecstasy or, more commonly, E. If it had been anything over 140mg, Matser would have recommended half a tablet now and the other half later.
If it had been MDEA - ethyl instead of methyl in the middle of the formula - the punter would have been overcharged for a lesser substitute. If it had turned orange instead of purple, it would have been a straightforward amphetamine - "speed", "whizz", "uppers" - and expensive at half the price.
"The trouble with 'legalising' usage without legalising supply - except for the small-time dealers - is that you bring the major criminals into Amsterdam"
If it had turned no colour at all, it could have been anything - and should not be touched with a bargepole. "Go find the dealer and get your money back," would have been Matser's advice.
The crowd of youngsters around the Safe House table grew with each passing minute, and Matser was joined by three more analysts to keep pace with demand. Some of the customers were dealers, anxious to obtain a seal of approval for their wares. So this was "cracking down" on the the drugs problem, Dutch-style . . .
In Britain, where the tragic death of teenager Leah Betts brought into focus the ever-increasing use of ecstasy as a party stimulant, the Government last month began a £15 million, three-year campaign with advertisements warning youngsters who defy the law that they are risking kidney and liver failure and permanent brain damage.
British police believe that the Dutch "blind-eye" policy, coupled with the ready availability of cheap quality testing, has created a manufacturing base which is flooding the British underground market with inferior - often contaminated - versions of the drug.
"Fifty per cent of burglaries in this country are committed to finance the drug habit, so, as things are, it is often innocent householders who are the main victims"
"The trouble with 'legalising' usage without legalising supply - except for the small-time dealers - is that you bring the major criminals into Amsterdam, who inevitably over-produce and have to start looking for foreign outlets," said former Detective Chief Inspector Eddie Ellison, until recently head of Scotland Yard's Drugs Squad. "With the relaxing of customs controls, it is well nigh impossible to stop tablets coming straight in across the Channel."
Ellison believes there is a case for legalising soft drugs, if only because the price would immediately plummet. A single ecstasy tablet, now costing anything between £2 and £8 in Holland, can easily top £20 in Britain.
"Fifty per cent of burglaries in this country are committed to finance the drug habit, so, as things are, it is often innocent householders who are the main victims," he said. "But the worst option is when one country goes it alone." Matser, a 43-year-old graduate in international law from Utrecht University, is fully aware that Holland's permissive policy has knock-on effects beyond her immediate frontiers - "We get a constant stream of foreign detectives visiting us to find out how we do things here" - but was in unapologetic mood when I visited him the previous day at the Advice Bureau's headquarters.
"Ecstasy, like all hard and soft drugs, is illegal but our police, unlike other European countries, are allowed to choose which laws they enforce and which they don't," he said.
"When they bring pills here for us to test, I sometimes ask them whether they use them at home and they say 'No, what's the point? - We don't dance at home'"
"Here, our policy is harm reduction. Arrest everybody and all that would happen is that we would have to build a lot more prisons. And what would happen when they come out?
"I would rather have the kids take a pill or two than drink a lot of alcohol. They never do both. Alcohol is a downer and ecstasy is an upper - the one kills the effect of the other. The most important thing for them is wanting to dance the whole night through. When they bring pills here for us to test, I sometimes ask them whether they use them at home and they say 'No, what's the point? - We don't dance at home.' "
Whatever messages might be coming down from the parliamentarians - there is even talk of setting aside 500 prison cells for drug addicts persistently committing petty crimes - Detective Sergeant Arend Stehouwer, of the Rotterdam police narcotics department, is adamant that the law enforcers have got it right.
"We tried the hard-line approach in the past and, to be honest, we were not making much progress. When ecstasy began to become popular a couple of years ago, we had to decide whether to forbid it or to allow for it to be tested. You can't have it both ways.
"I know that the French and Germans are not very fond of us, but other countries are talking of imitating us. And we are being responsible. When someone wants to organise a big 'house' party, there are severe conditions that have to be met before they get permission.
"All we do is say whether it is a 'good' pill - and everyone knows that 'good' means only that it is what it claims to be"
"We insist that there is plenty of fresh air, that lemonade is available, that there are security men in sufficient numbers to keep order - at their expense, not ours - and first-aid people on the look-out. We are public servants - with the emphasis on 'servants' - and we are here to help."
One can hardly blame the party-goers for assuming that what is smiled upon by officialdom must be okay for them. So is this nod-nod-wink-wink alliance of police, the Drugs Advice Bureau, the Ministry of Health and the City of Amsterdam (which jointly help to foot the bureau's bills) and the Institute of Alcohol and Drugs (to which it submits regular reports) merely acting as an advertising agency for the ungodly?
Herman Matser, looking disarmingly sympathetic with shoulder-length hair cascading over flower-power shirt, pointed to the notices which were displayed throughout the Vachtsebanen: "The use of drugs is never without a risk - not even when the result of the test is good. For your own safety, have your ecstasy tested at the Safe House stand. Anonymity guaranteed."
"We don't give it approval," he insisted. "All we do is say whether it is a 'good' pill - and everyone knows that 'good' means only that it is what it claims to be.
Only a handful of tablets could not be identified and, significantly, none was found to contain a dangerously high dosage.
"Yes, there is a very small minority who take the pills only because we are around to test them. I wish everyone were like them; if they were, we wouldn't exist and nor would ecstasy.
"There are smaller parties than this, where the people are more educated and the pills have been brought to us in advance. But we are working at the other end - where there isn't much money and there isn't much education. And, but for us, that's where the bad stuff would be."
By 1 am, when the party was at its peak, some 4,000 youngsters were crammed into the Vachtsebanen, gyrating in spasmodic, desultory fashion, and business at the Safe House table was brisk. Six hours later, Matser and his team decided enough was enough. They had tested 320 pills.
"That was only a small percentage of the number in circulation because, often, the one we examined was from a big bag of identical ones - and obviously some we never saw at all," he said. "A few kids collapsed - probably from a mixture of drugs and exhaustion - but no one was taken to hospital."
Only a handful of tablets could not be identified and, significantly, none was found to contain a dangerously high dosage. It could be that those are somewhere in Britain, where their chance of being intercepted by expert analysis is nil. It was a sobering thought to take away into a cold and gloomy morning.
http://www.telelgraph.co.uk/
UK/CH : BBC report about MDMA testing in clubs Head of UK Police agency suggest "drug testing may be useful"; although he is only in charge of an organisation that suggests ideas to territorial (regional) constabularies and cannot push testing forward on his own.
Also some reports about testing in CH. Curiously this completely ignores the fact that NL has had the exact same arrangement for years; which worryingly suggests that NL govt or whoever is paying for it all is increasingly discouraging Trimbos/Unity etc from publicising their drugs harm reduction work internationally, in preference to discussing more generic mental health related issues (I've noticed this a lot when comparing the Dutch language content with the English content)
Club drug testing ?may be useful? says police chief - BBC Newsbeat
CH : More detailed BBC report about pill testing in Bern More about Switzerland testing. Impressive to see that everyone is willing to even disclose their full names and the location to the BBC; although I suspect they are also smart enough to realise that CH is 1000km away so there isn't quite as much risk of drugs tourism from the UK compared to NL and DE...
We follow the journey of an ecstasy pill through testing in Switzerland - BBC Newsbeat
MDMA risk levels may be gender specific In the 90s/00s I remember a lot more young women reducing their use / moving away from the rave scene quicker than young men, and pointing out that heavy use caused them "womens problems", although pills were not as strong then and cost more so gross overdoses were very uncommon.
The article also points out risks to all current users of accidentally taking much more MDMA than they wanted to..
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/nov/04/mdma-ecstasy-poses-greater-danger-to-women-than-men-warn-scientists123
Pinned
Drugs monitor issues warning for dangerous Superman ‘ecstasy’ pills The Dutch Trimbos drug addiction clinic has issued a warning about a dangerous type of ecstasy pill currently in circulation in the Netherlands. The warning comes just weeks after several tourists died in Amsterdam after taking heroin they believed to be cocaine.
The Trimbos institute says the dangerous pills are pink and feature the Superman logo. They contain a very high dose of a chemical known as PMMA, rather than MDMA which is the main component of ecstasy.
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PMMA is slow to have an effect, and this has led to users taking more pills because they think the first ones don’t work, the Trimbos institute said. The side effects of too much PMMA include a racing heart and very high body temperature. An overdose can be fatal. Dutch media reported on at least two PMMA related deaths in the Netherlands in 2013.12
UK : Another BBC report on high strength pills/darknet sales This young lads usage patterns are worrying (multiple doses of 233 mg pills) - although he may at least have had the sense to claim all 24 pills were for his own personal use - it wasn't that long ago if you were caught that would result an intent to supply charge and 24 months jail...
That said I don't think they are likely to kill him outright, but he'd enjoy them a lot more if he took less at each dose and if he carries on at that rate risks ending up suffering chronic low level mental health problems like loads of 90s/2000s era ravers..
also the entire darknet trade is being investigated by RAND corp (who designed USA nuclear bombs back in the day) on the invitation of the Netherlands Government and Europol/Interpol (the full reports are on Dutch govt website); it is easier to track darknet trades when they are concentrated around one small country (and MDMA trade is) without even having to decrypt anything; just by following the physical movement of parcels etc (bear in mind these are already scanned and checked automatically in case of IED risks as well as operational requirements of the postal services such as dimension checking)
The growing popularity, and potency, of ecstasy and MDMA - BBC News
UK: Woman in hospital after taking E pill – October 2001 Woman in hospital after taking E pill
by J. Barnes and S. Asplin - October 29, 2001
Copyright: J. Barnes and S. Asplin
Detectives launched a hunt last night to find the supplier of an Ecstasy tablet that left a woman in hospital after an illegal rave. The female reveller, who has not been named, was being treated in Ipswich Hospital last night after taking a pill at Saturday night's event, which attracted 1,500 to a disused warehouse in the town. The hunt came as an East Anglian MP pledged to look into whether the law could be changed to stop rave groups being able to set up events in private property without risk of prosecution.
Suffolk police said the event's organisers had broken into the building - formerly the Wallace Kings Home City premises at Orwell Retail Park in Ranelagh Road - and set up the rave at about 11pm. They added the event continued past dawn the following day and a woman had to be taken to hospital after taking the Ecstasy tablet, but her condition was described last night as not life-threatening.
A 21-year-old man was also taken to hospital with suspected alcohol poisoning, while a 25-year-old man had his face slashed, but refused medical treatment. Ivan Henderson, the Labour MP for Harwich and a private secretary to Home Office ministers Keith Bradley and Beverley Hughes, said he would be pushing for legislation to stop illegal raves.
"If someone owns land and they have not got the means to keep people off it, then something needs to be done," he added. "The Government should look at the changing the legislation to protect them and stop these things going on. It is not good enough that they don't cause any damage – they should ask permission from the landowner first. This is something I will be taking up."
The rave was staged by Colchester-based Pulse8 and one of the organisers, who would only give his name as Matt, said MPs should be trying to persuade local authorities to show raves more support. "They should be trying to persuade councillors to look to providing us with venues so we can stage events like this," he added.
"At the moment we are just being pushed into expensive clubs. It's not bad to have fun. People don't want to go home at 2am – what's wrong with partying until 6am?" Matt said by providing a permanent venue, Pulse8 would be able to work with the emergency services, local authorities and other rave groups to ensure premises were safe and events were run with less disruption to residents or businesses. He added every venue picked for a rave was inspected and people with fire and medical experience were on hand throughout the event.
"Every venue we use is left open – we do not break in – so if property is left open, it's a potential target as we do not have legitimate premises. There will be some noise, but for about seven hours for one night, I don't think that's really much hardship. "We cannot obviously pre-warn the emergency services, so we do the best we can, we will call an ambulance if we cannot deal with it," said Matt. But he admitted ravers were not searched for drugs as that was considered a "blatant invasion of privacy".
Matt added: "A lot of people in the world take drugs and a lot of these people may or may not come to a party. You may go out to a pub and enjoy a beer, but you don't know if the person you are with has a habit or addiction." In July, 300 people held a rave on land belonging to Stebbing farmer Tony Lanyon, but Essex Police said they were powerless to act as the revellers had not committed a criminal offence, only the civil offence of trespass. Mr Lanyon, who called the situation "ridiculous" and a "total invasion of privacy", has written to the Home Office to try to get legislation changed.
A spokeswoman for Essex Police said there was probably about one big rave a month in the county, often sited in the Braintree area. "Our hands are tied because trespass is a civil not a criminal issue. What we try to do is beat them to the location or ring round owners in a certain location and warn them to protect their property. But even if we can turn them away, they will just go on somewhere else," she added.
NL : Primary school kid in intensive care after mistaking dumped XTC-pills for sweets This happened in Groningen. it appears the kids found a small discarded / mislaid bag of pills and one boy took one. A teacher saw this and called 112, the boy was taken to hospital by Ambulance and is recovering there.
I located the schools website (I will not put it on here to spare them any further bad publicity, as it is a decent school, the sort that if I had ended up marrying that Chinese lass and subsequently raising a family in that area I would have wanted the kids to go to. One feature of it is it has a very large "adventure" type playground - the Dutch are not so paranoid of "pedos/strangers" as UK so the school campus is not under such high security.
Primary school kids in Europe do not normally attend school at weekends; a place like this is obviously going to attract teenagers and young adults looking for a place to "hang around" (maybe they once attended the school themselves as a child!)
A tip to any xtc-users who might hang out in a place where small children (or dogs) are also likely to be found - clear up after yourselves and/or check for any mislaid pills! Even if that no longer a big financial loss it could still harm someone else and also your whole neighbourhood is put under police surveillance and/or locals start putting up CCTV cameras everywhere.
Kleuter uit Hoogezand op IC na eten XTC-pil - Groningen - DVHN.nl
Politie onderzoekt herkomst xtc-pillen op schoolplein basisschool Hoogezand | NU - Het laatste nieuws het eerst op NU.nl
NL : TNT post return pill package to random Dutch household! The residents are not drug users and notified cops immediately (who have seized the package for investigation).
According to cops the package was intended for an overseas address but was returned (possibly either due to a control at NL Douane or the customs at the country receiving the package) - and the senders put random return addresses on the packages
it appears the Dutch postal administration gets suspicious if someone goes to all the trouble of filling up a package and does not put a valid NL return address on it although that might simply be how society works in NL - although (or maybe because) they have strong privacy laws it seems that Dutch people trust both their private and public sector organisations much more with personal info..
Per ongeluk zakken met xtc-pillen op de deurmat | NOS
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