Canada - Feds, health officials differ on approach to drug policy

[S.J.B.]

Feds, health officials differ on approach to drug policy
CTV
June 24th, 2012

VANCOUVER — Glowsticks, fuzzy pants and DJ Johnny Fiasco were the recipe for a Calgary rave back in the late-'90s when it was Kevin's job to supply the key ingredient: white powder-packed capsules that stoked touchy-feely-dance vibes in partiers until dawn.

But after a Canada-wide RCMP bust cleared out stockpiles of ecstasy one August weekend in 1997, the 19-year-old dealer lost his usual source.

So he scooped up 200 pills from some guy in the back of a car, having no clue they were the hallucinogen PCP cut with horse tranquilizer.

"We ended up with a party full of sick kids," said the 34-year-old, who now lives in Vancouver and whose name has been changed. "We were pulling 15-year-old girls out of the bathroom who were puking their guts out, had no idea who they were, where they were, what they were doing."

Similar misadventure has repeated countless times in the ensuing years, the latest, a rash of 16 deaths across Western Canada in nine months from an ecstasy batch laced with PMMA, a chemical not previously seen here.

Several top public health officials are now proposing a rethinking of current illegal-drug policies they assert spurs on a global problem involving ecstasy, one that even the White House says is made in Canada, specifically B.C.

But the suggestion for dialogue about a careful, science-based crafting of new health-oriented regulations comes at the same time the federal government has taken the polar opposite course with its omnibus crime bill.

In mid-March, the class of drugs that includes the substance MDMA -- considered the pure and original form of ecstasy -- was bumped up to a Schedule I drug under Bill C-10, giving it heightened status alongside heroin and cocaine.

The boost has the health officers and other advocates of change warning the tough-on-crime approach will not curb street ecstasy's use or its associated dangers, but instead will further play into the hands of organized crime

British Columbia's Provincial Health Officer Dr. Perry Kendall and colleagues argue the proliferation of dirty street ecstasy and ecstasy overdoses are a direct consequence of criminalization and prohibition.

Read the full story here.

 

[Folley]

having no clue they were the hallucinogen PCP cut with horse tranquilizer.

Such a fucking stupid and ignorant comment.



1. PCP is not found in ecstasy
2. Ketamine is "horse tranquilizer, and is not found in ecstasy
3. Why would you combine PCP and ketamine?
4. The pills they took sound like obvious piperazines, which can be hallucinogenic and will definitely make you throw up

 

[23536]

We were pulling 15-year-old girls out of the bathroom who were puking their guts out, had no idea who they were, where they were, what they were doing.

sounds like dissociatives to me

 

[shishigami]

Such a fucking stupid and ignorant comment.

1. PCP is not found in ecstasy
2. Ketamine is "horse tranquilizer, and is not found in ecstasy
3. Why would you combine PCP and ketamine?
4. The pills they took sound like obvious piperazines, which can be hallucinogenic and will definitely make you throw up

1. Sometimes it is.
2. A wop wop wop.
3. Don't know why but this guy did.
4. Any drug will make you puke and hallucinate if you take enough.