AUCKLAND: Last week police uncovered a major illegal drug syndicate, said to have controlled 90 percent of Auckland's ecstasy trade. After a yearlong investigation, 22 people have been arrested in connection and millions of dollars have been seized in the form of assets from 45 Auckland properties police raided. The toxic pill sold by the group has prompted seizures and hallucinations and left users aggressive and agitated, leaving dozens in hospital recently. Police say the drug was made in composition with many other ingredients including rat poison, while the raw ingredients were imported from overseas. MDMA, ecstasy's active ingredient was only found in a couple of the pills while the rest consisted of substitutes or cathinones. Dr Chris Wilkins of Massey University says research shows a spike in the availability of the drug in Auckland at the end of last year. “We did find signs that the Auckland ecstasy market appeared to have grown quite a bit,” said Wilkins. Considering the price drop from $51 to $41, “there was a big increase in the number of respondents who were buying ecstasy weekly or more often [and] a big jump in Auckland.” Detective Inspector Bruce Good, in charge of the investigation said “Those who've been manufacturing such pills have regularly modified the molecular structure of various compounds and, by so doing, created dangerous substances that have been sold as ecstasy.” “My advice to anyone considering buying or consuming what they think is ecstasy is- don't do it,” said Good. The ecstasy pill was highly popular in the early 1990s but sales slowed down as it increasingly attributed to deaths of consumers, however recently the drug has come back into fashion, being re-marketed as a “premium product.” The drug has become pricier as more potent forms are being sold due to the increase in manufacture of the drug by Chinese chemists, overshadowing the traditional ecstasy pill in the Netherlands. Fiona Measham, a criminology researcher from Lancaster University said “People who do ecstasy really love ecstasy.” “There's a real fondness for it, and so when good quality MDMA has come on the scene people have started using it again.” BM
