Last week, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy reported that from 2003-2006, more than half the ecstasy tablets seized at the Candian border while in in transit to the United States contained methamphetamine. The New York Times ran a piece announcing the terrifying arrival of this "enhanced ecstasy," lamenting that the pills have appeared "just as the supply of methamphetamine is being strangled at the Mexican border."

I take issue with the paper's coverage of this issue for several reasons.

First, it purports to present methamphetamine-laced ecstasy pills as a deadly new trend in the drug market, while offering little support for the allegation that these pills are either deadly, or new. It is strange that the article tries to stir up fear about the danger of these particular pills, while blithley noting that thus far, the pills have not been the source of any emergency room admissions. Even more questionable is the way in which the paper parrots the ONDCP's warning about the pills, without noting that the government organization did not announce in what quantity methamphetamine appeared in the samples tested. While the interaction between methamphetamine and ecstasy can certainly be dangerous and even fatal, it is crucial to know the amounts of the respective chemicals contained in the pill in question when making an assessment of the dangers it yields. The fact that the Times did not even mention the importance of ascertaining the pills' MDMA:methamphetamine ratio makes me wonder if the editors truly had public health concerns in mind when they published this story, or if they were more concerned with cutting juicy headlines and promulgating sensationalist fears around drugs and drug culture. After all, the article seems to to assume that even if the amount of methamphetamine showing up in Ecstasy pills was negligible, the drug's mere presence warrants disgust and fear--and who will negate this argument? As the Times surely knows, American society has attached a stronger stigma to methamphetamine than to any other substance, and so the drug makes the perfect candidate for a fearmongering piece.

Looking at the pill testing data on ecstasydata.org, one can see that there were many pills cut with meth during the period from 1999-2002, before this "new" Canadian trend surfaced. In fact, this data shows that more than twice as many "Ecstasy" pills from 1999-2002 tested as 100% pure methamphetamine than the pills sampled from 2003-2006. According to this data, you were also more likely to get a pill cut with Ketamine, DXM, or PCP during the 1999-2002 period.

So we must be wary whenever the media confronts us with a "new trend."

We must also be wary whenever the finger is pointed at another country for inducing a pattern in Americans' substance use. The article postulates that Canadian criminal gangs have started producing meth-laced Ecstasy as a "marketing ploy" to get more Americans interested in Ecstasy pills. This is just silly--the demand for Ecstasy has existed since its discovery. Americans don't need to be "tricked" into wanting and purchasing the drug--there will always be those who want Ecstasy pills, and there will always be those who will supply them. Blaming another country for a drug's influx into America is not only naive, it is irresponsible; it sends the signal to the public and to policymakers that the way to deal with America's drug problem is to muscle our way into other countries' law enforcement strategies, while ignoring our responsibility to take the route that studies have proven most effective--devoting funds to prevention and treatment efforts here at home.

I think that the Times has shown a lack of judgment in printing a story that concocts a new foreign menace for Americans to fret over. But the biggest problem I have with this reportage is that fearmongering organized around the presence of methamphetamine in pills obfuscates the real issue, which is that in an unregulated market, you never know what you're getting and in what amount you're getting it. Maybe your pill is cut with anaesthetics like procaine or antihistamines like dihphenhydramine, or maybe it contains the deadly adulterant paramethoxymethamphetamine (PMA). The illicit market contains no quality controls. So if we're really concerned about public health and safety, and not just seizing on a chance to flex our muscle in other countries, we should start talking about regulation.

Labels: ecstasy, Methamphetamine