Pubdate: Thu, 04 Feb 2000 Source: Hamilton Spectator (CN ON) Copyright: The Hamilton Spectator 2000 Contact: http://www.southam.com/hamiltonspectator/ Author: Carmelina Prete, Chinta Puxley NEW-BREED DRUG DEALERS JUST LIKE 'KIDS NEXT DOOR' Police describe a new breed of drug dealer as the kid-next-door who sells at all-night parties. Forget the image of a pusher in a dark alley selling evil in a needle. Police say the stereotypical sellers of the so-called designer drugs, such as ecstasy, liquid ecstasy and crystal meth, are the young and the beautiful. "It's one thing that amazes us," said RCMP Corporal John Rae, of the Toronto North Detachment Drug Section. "They're all the boy-next-door, the girl-next-door, young and good-looking ... They're not what you consider your typical street drug person who is hardened by life ... "That's the scary part. You go to a rave and there's your average kid, going to school and living at home. The new dealers are coming out from the new phenomenon." Two Hamilton teenagers, 16 and 17, have been charged with importing $1.2 million of ecstasy pills after they were arrested with more than 34,000 pills strapped to their legs at the Toronto airport last week. They were returning from a one-week trip to Paris. Ecstasy, or MDMA, is a stimulant with some hallucinogenic properties and usually comes in a tablet. The high kicks in about 30 minutes after ingestion and lasts six to eight hours. It's sold for about $30 to $40 a tab. The drug bust is significant because of both its size and the age of the people accused. Police won't comment on the teens who have been charged, but Hamilton-Wentworth Detective Sergeant Rick Wills said it's not wise to paint a picture of them as hardened criminals. "I would suggest this was more of an opportunistic thing," Wills said. "It's greed and the opportunity (that) lures these kids into something like this." Rae said most small-time traffickers need no persuasive recruiting. "You get into that subculture and it's not hard. It's like, 'Here's five (pills) -- sell three and pay for your night out.' It's easy to get into the trafficking. It's not the older people who are coming out saying, 'Here, poor young offender, do it.' No, no. It's starting from within the user group." And there's a growing market for it. Police estimate 90 per cent of ecstasy bought here is imported. They think only 10 per cent is manufactured in makeshift labs. Last week's single bust is almost three times that of the ecstasy seized at the airport all last year. The bust was the fourth this year at the airport -- bringing the total amount of ecstasy seized since Jan. 15 to more than 72,800 hits worth more than $2.5 million. Rae said youth and lack of experience make the mules (drug carriers) easier to apprehend. "They don't have the background of the old-time coke, pot and hash traffickers (who) are a cagey old bunch. But the new rave crowd is certainly different. Naive is the best way to describe them." Anne Kalvik, pharmacist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health who has studied ecstasy, said the drug can have many adverse side-effects -- including the danger of other drugs being mixed with the MDMA. Ecstasy can be cut with heroin or cocaine or diluted with other substances that the raver unknowingly ingests. Even on its own, Kalvik said, ecstasy is dangerous. "It's got this false reputation of being a drug that gives you high sociability and allows you to have a better time at raves. But, with some people, it can cause ... death." Ecstasy disrupts the body's internal heating. When the drug is combined with the hours of nonstop dancing at raves, it can cause the person to overheat and go into convulsions or collapse. Kalvik said some users also have medical conditions they aren't aware of, which can also cause an adverse reaction. While the drug gives many increased energy, sociability and confidence, Kalvik said everyone runs the risk of also experiencing nausea, jaw clenching, insomnia, weight loss, seizure and stroke. Kalvik said the drug is so new that not much is known about long-term effects. "It's a pretty big risk to take," she said. "Young people don't think far down the road but things can happen." Warnings from experts seem to be falling on deaf ears. Use of the drug has increased since it first emerged in the late 1980s. Dr. Ed Adlaf, co-author of the Ontario Student Drug Use Survey, said ecstasy barely registered in the 1991 and 1993 surveys. "Under 1 per cent (of students were using it) in 1991 and 1993," he said. "But since that time, there has been a reasonable increase. In 1999, almost 5 per cent of students reported using ecstasy at least once." While Adlaf said that percentage may seem small, 5 per cent represents roughly 20,000 students across Ontario. But Adlaf said most students who reported using the drug weren't regular ecstasy users. But Rosemary Hilbert, social worker with the Alcohol and Gambling services at the Hamilton-Wentworth public health department, said ecstasy has been a concern for her department for three years. She said ecstasy often isn't the only problem. It's usually an indication that other drugs are being used as well. - --- MAP posted-by: Greg