Young wants to ban ecstasy drug

KINNESHA GEORGE-HARRY

National Security Minister Stuart Young is advocating for ecstasy to be added to the list of banned drugs, as its use has become prevalent among young people in TT.

The formal name of the drug is MDMA, an abbreviation of its scientific name 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine. It is also commonly called “the love drug” because of the euphoria experienced by users.

The drug causes feelings of increased energy, empathy, pleasure and affection. Adverse effects, however, can include memory problems, paranoia, difficulty sleeping, rapid heartbeat, sweating, blurred vision and dehydration, which can lead to death. After-effects include tiredness and depression because of a depletion of happiness hormone dopamine. The street name for the pure version of the drug is Molly.

Addressing the opening ceremony of the adolescent drug intervention training programme at the Mt Irvine Bay Hotel, on Tuesday, Young said use of the drug “seems to be escalating,” and it is being used by young people and adolescents.

He said the ministry had recently found out the drug was not on the local prohibited list.

"That is something, at the Ministry of National Security, we’re working feverishly on.

“Ecstasy is just a sort of street name for a cocktail of substances put together into pills. We’re doing what we can to make it illegal.

"It shocked me as well to learn that in small TT, we’ve had interdictions of over 7,000 pills in the last year. We’ve had people so bold, because it is not on the prohibited list, that they were mailing ecstasy drugs from away. That is how boldfaced they are, and the target is our young people and our adolescents,” he said.