The Hindu : 'Ecstasy' drugs a nightmare, says expert

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, May 25, 2003

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'Ecstasy' drugs a nightmare, says expert

By K.T. Sangameswaran

CHENNAI MAY 24. The unearthing of a clandestine laboratory in Kolkata for manufacturing Amphetamine Type Stimulants (ATS) has jolted the country and an international drugs expert today warned that `ecstasy' drugs and the methamphetamine abuse problem would be a nightmare for community and police organisations worldwide.

The illegal unit was perhaps to meet the increasing demand for the drug from the urban youth in India.

"No doubt the country's youth lifestyle is following the Western cultural patterns, where drugs and youth culture are merging together," Ramachandra Sundaralingam, who functioned as a leading drugs expert of the International Police Organisation (INTERPOL) for 16 years, told The Hindu.

A retired Additional Director-General of Police, Sri Lanka, he is now on an attachment with police, customs and anti-narcotics agencies in the country. He had already warned that European countries faced a mammoth problem of drug abuse.

Ecstasy drugs were the "hottest commodities" in the U.S., Europe and Asia. Manufacturing ATS was the `employment' of some of the unemployed chemists of the erstwhile Soviet Union and the Balkan countries, in Europe, raking in fortunes. Crystals of Methamphetamine (sold in the international market under names such as `black beauties', `crack meth', `crystal meth' and `ice') were being produced illegally in large quantities in China to meet the ever-increasing demand in Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, Indonesia, Philippines and Australia.

Neighbouring Myanmar (Burma) has emerged as the largest producer of methamphetamine tablets in the world-800 million tablets a year with Thailand being the major recipient of the drug.

Mr. Sundaralingam said that authorities in Thailand had confirmed that five per cent of the country's population of 60 million were amphetamine abusers.

Quoting the Interpol and the International Narcotics Control Board, he said leakages of Ephedrine, a chemical used for manufacturing ATS, which is legally produced in India and China, was being trafficked to clandestine laboratories in Myanmar.

The expert felt that with Thailand clamping down on methamphetamine laboratories on the Burmese border, drug syndicates were possibly moving into India.

The north-east border between Myanmar and India had been a corridor for "two-way smuggling between the two countries for many years."

Because of the problem, a greater vigil by law enforcement agencies was required, Mr. Sundaralingam said.

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