– Commissioner James tells students

COMMISSIONER of Police Leslie James has urged young people to steer clear of ecstasy, warning that possession and use of the drug have serious consequences.

The commissioner issued the warning at the inaugural Guyana National Youth Conference at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre on Thursday.

Among the participants at the conference were teachers who raised concerns about the use of ecstasy in schools. They have called the drug the “rape pill”.

Ecstasy is defined as a derivative of amphetamine. Its chemical name is methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) and it has a similar structure to methamphetamine.

According to information from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, ecstasy has a variety of street names including XTC, Adam, M & M, E, and Essence.

Ecstasy is synthesised in clandestine laboratories; in fact, there are several designer drugs that are made by altering the structure of the amphetamine molecule.
“Because ecstasy is synthesised in laboratories, its purity can vary substantially from lab to lab, and other compounds are easily combined into the same tablet. Contaminants often include caffeine, ephedrine, ketamine – a mild hallucinogen and methamphetamine,” said the institute.

“Please be aware of the presence of ecstasy and other type of drugs… the information is, it is now prevalent in schools,” said James.

The commissioner said that in previous interactions with several schools, he discovered that children were being taken advantage of by their peers after using the drug.
“As a school child you can yield under peer pressure… the drug appears to be quite friendly with immediate effects but the post results is what we are concerned about,” he said, adding that the Guyana Police Force (GPF) has launched several programmes to address the growing concerns.

In an effort to eradicate the “scourge”, the GPF has started to meet with stakeholders in order to craft an effective plan to address the situation.

James confirmed that the GPF had also met with officials from Suriname to determine where exactly the drug is coming from, since it appears to be coming from the eastern border of Guyana.

“The situation is not bleak, we have programmes to deal with the issue… we will continue to engage schools and stakeholders as we go forward with addressing the matter,” he said.
The use of ecstasy by adolescents has increased in recent years and this has been found in several schools in Regions Three and Four, according to Deputy Head of the Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU), Lesley Ramlall.

He said investigations were conducted at various schools with the consent of the Ministry of Education and students have admitted to the use of ecstasy. A number of persons have since been arrested. Ramlall said the new trend is very worrying for Guyana, since there has been a growing demand for ecstasy among the youth population.