| Detective Inspector Campbell McGregor was speaking after research indicated a sharp drop in the price of the drug in British nightclubs was responsible for an increase in fatalities.
Police said the reduction in price had resulted in users, who had previously taken a single tablet, now “stacking” or taking two or three in a row.
“In Tayside, you are talking about £5 for buying a single tablet in a pub, a club or at a music festival, because it is a seller’s market,” said DI McGregor.
“If you are buying in bulk, say by the thousand, then you are probably looking at 80p to £1 per tablet, and it filters down from there.
“That has been the situation for about a year to 18 months. Before that, it was about £10 per single tablet, and going back about 10 years, when they first came on the scene, it was £20 to £25.”
At that time, police in this area generally only seized tablets with a dove logo stamped on them. Now there is a vast array, with the Euro symbol prominent.
One of the benefits of the drop in price is that police are no longer finding “fake” tablets made of amphetamine rather than MDMA.
However, DI Campbell continued, “Now there are people that stack over the course of a night or a weekend, rather than one or even a half in the early days. At the end of the day it is more available, but I don’t think the price coming down necessarily means more people are trying it.”
Police believe most of the ecstasy coming into Scotland is from the continent, arriving via Holland and Germany, and there is no evidence to suggest tablets are being manufactured in this country.
Across the UK, the price of ecstasy has halved since 1994, when pills cost about £16.50. It is estimated that around 780,000 young people take the drug regularly.
Coroners’ reports reveal that 202 deaths were caused by ecstasy over the past six years, rising from 12 in 1996 to 72 from 2001 to 2002. One in seven of those who died was under 19.
Researchers from St George’s Hospital Medical School in London, who analysed the figures, said the fall in the price of the drug was an important factor behind the rising death rate.
Unlike heroin, where deaths were linked to an overdose, ecstasy had been known to kill in doses as small as one pill, said Fabrizio Schifano, who led the research.
He said, “You don’t know in advance what will happen.” |
