Party Vibe

Warning : The “Superman” pills containing PMMA have have reappeared in NL!

Trimbos just had some handed in to test centre last week and have put out a red alert. They are quoting exactly the same description as the ones in 2015 that caused fatalities in UK and Europe (2 of which were in Ipswich, making 3 “Ecstasy” related fatalities in early 2015).

Original article (NL) : https://www.trimbos.nl/actueel/nieuws/bericht/?bericht=2165

I would have thought NL with its testing facilities would be one of the worst places to try and offload them but I guess there could be tens of thousands of Euros worth of these which folk aren’t just going to dump into the ditch (unlike all the leftovers from MDMA production that end up causing the fire brigade and environment protection a lot of hassle in some areas).

This also coincides with Amsterdam Dance Event which is worrying as its almost as if someone could be deliberately trying to fuck things up.

Then again I’ve been reading a lot recently from Dutch news about the darker side of the drugs/music culture in the Netherlands and other political issues there – NL is not the friendly, multicultural, hedonistic party paradise that folk think it is and stuff like the Middle East/refugee crisis and Brexit (which has caused loads of UK companies to cancel business deals with NL) has made things worse.

@Digital Buddha 986767 wrote:

I think whomever has quantity of these pills isn’t big enough to sink the ship as far as the money is concerned. If half of what you’ve got in terms of financial resources is sunk into bunk pills you’ve got to try to recoup some of it and push it onto the next guy(s) to worry about. [/quote]

TBH the dealers are likely to be young people living around the Bible Belt (they have one in NL, same type of extreme Calvinist Protestants found in some bits of USA) who have already been disowned by their families and whose mindsets are as much fucked over more by their upbringing than the drugs – so they wouldn’t even care about the risk of prison time (which is otherwise near impossible to get for dealing small amounts of drugs in NL).

ADE does attract a lot of overseas visitors but that also means Trimbos etc are on the ball; there is also an extra testing site in the vicinity of the events (it is not possible to do the tests directly at the events or it could causes licensing problems as they get accused of “facilitating” drug use.

TBH even Trimbos will not divulge (to the general public) exactly where in NL the pills were found, but I am getting a steady string of retweets from local Police officers in NL warning about these pills, along with the usual things they would tweet like keeping buildings safe from burglars or making sure to have good lights on your bicycle.

One positive thing about Dutch society is there is slightly more trust in local authorities than in UK even amongst young people and everyone seems to warn one another of something that could be a potential danger. Even so there are deep divisions there about whether the “liberal” attitude to drugs is a good idea as right wing types deeply resent the tax money spent on it and the more lenient treatment of young offenders in general (as the overall crime figures are still no different from the UK)

Trimbos stood down the “red alert” warning for NL a few days ago (it is likely these were leftover stock from somewhere) but as yet there is limited monitoring/testing in UK, it is mostly confined to the North of England.

There was however a festival events safety conference held by Suffolk Constabulary, Metpol and some others in Ipswich of all places (a town which since 10 years ago implemented one of the harshest zero tolerance policies against nightlife following gang related fatalities and the murders of addicted sex workers) where according to someone attending from a harm reduction charity 80% of cops present were supportive of testing at events.

I have suggested to both the Loop and a charity working with young people in Ipswich and Suffolk that this testing should be extended so it is available to users outside of clubs/festivals as in reality that is where most MDMA use occurs in my town and the surrounding areas.

If we had this perhaps all 3 fatalities in 2014/5 could have been avoided.