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Toronto Star - December 4, 2001

A lethal drug without stigma
Ecstasy's benign reputation puts unwitting users in peril

Michelle Shephard
Crime Reporter

Within five minutes you can buy enough crack on the corner of Queen and Sherbourne Sts. for a 200-pound man to overdose. But you probably won't find anyone selling ecstasy.

Although it's an illegal drug, labelled by a veteran officer yesterday as the city's most dangerous, E — or MDMA (methylenedioxymethamphetamine), as the amphetamine derivative is formally known — is not sold furtively on street corners.

In some ways, that's the problem.

Society in general, and specifically teenagers, have stigmatized the crack or heroin user, police say. But many users don't feel they're doing something illegal or dangerous by taking ecstasy.

"I keep pushing the fact that enforcement and custodial sentences are not the answer; we've got to educate the youth," said 14 Division vice squad Detective Howie Page, reacting to the news that ecstasy use was suspected in the death of 17-year-old Nicole Malik on the weekend.

"If you use crack or heroin you'd be called a junkie or crackhead, and that's not accepted. But many youths don't think seriously about ecstasy, and that's why it's so dangerous."

Tests to determine how Malik died will be complete in a few weeks, Deputy Chief Coroner Barry McLellan said. Ecstasy was suspected as the cause after friends said Malik had ingested the designer drug before going to a Bloor St. W. Internet cafe Friday night. A patron found her slumped on a couch Saturday morning.

"If this turns out (to be caused by) ecstasy, it just makes me sick. You feel bad when you hear about a 40-year-old heroin addict dying with a needle in their arm," Page said. "It's another feeling, though, when you read about a 17-year-old girl who had her whole life ahead of her and, if what her friends say is true, she had only tried this drug once before."

In 1998 there was one ecstasy-related death in Ontario. Next year, nine. This year the coroner's office has investigated nine so far, not including Malik's case.

"It's not as common a cause of death as other illicit drugs, but when people are taking ecstasy, our information is that they're taking it feeling they're taking a relatively safe drug," McLellan said. "I think the important message it that people still do die of ecstasy."

In the '90s, when ecstasy was a relatively new drug in Toronto, most of the bright-coloured little pills, stamped with hearts, flowers or cartoon characters, were imported from Europe. Now, it's believed basement labs are operating across the country, producing potentially lethal combinations.

Just yesterday, Peel police, working with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in Miami, announced arrests of six people charged with trafficking ecstasy at home and into the U.S. The probe ended Sunday, when two men tried to sell an undercover officer 10,000 pills in a Toronto hotel.

Four Mississauga men, a 22-year-old Montreal man and a 27-year-old man from De La Siene, Que., face weapons and drug charges; 33,000 tabs of ecstasy, with a street value of $720,000, were seized.

Police say ecstasy sales are controlled by criminal groups. Pills are sold at raves, clubs or schools, often by teenage dealers.

"Ninety-five per cent of these kids we arrest at the raves for selling ecstasy have never had trouble with the police ever, not even one time," Page said. "They don't realize they've stepped from leading a normal life into the world of trafficking. The day it hits home is when they're in bail court, Monday morning, with their parents in the back who have never had to step into a bail court before."

Ecstasy deaths often result not from the quantity consumed, but from lethal side effects, such as an increased heart rate.

A memorial service for Nicole will be held 11 a.m. Thursday at Turner and Porter Funeral Home, Roncesvalles Ave.