Fans of the summer festivals have been warned that an “unprecedented change” in the drug market caused by a combination of Brexit, blocking Covid and police operations against supply chains has led to a sharp and potentially damaging increase in counterfeit MDMA.
Criminologists and chemists have found that almost half of the substances sold as MDMA (ecstasy) at festivals in England last year do not contain any drug.
In the first peer-reviewed research on the trend, experts say many pills bought by partygoers such as MDMA are made up of ingredients such as cathinones, a new psychoactive substance (NPS) and caffeine. Some users report bad effects such as panic, psychosis and prolonged insomnia.
Researchers warn that with the impact of Brexit, which is still being felt strongly on legal and illegal markets, providers could continue to flood festivals and other events with fake MDMA, creating risks for consumers.
Michael Pasco, a research fellow at Cardiff University and co-author of the study, said: “This is the first peer-reviewed article to confirm that there has been an unprecedented change in the quality of British ecstasy since Brexit and the blockade. In addition to noticing this effect at festivals, the study also provides broader data for the United Kingdom, which confirms that the same effect has been observed across the country.
The main goal of the study is fieldwork by the drug testing charity The Loop, whose researchers visited three English music festivals last summer and tested hundreds of pills that buyers thought were MDMA in a mobile lab.
Researchers have found that 45% of substances sold as MDMA do not contain anything from the drug – and are instead composed of substances including cathinones and caffeine. Each was identified as a major component in one-fifth of the samples. In 2019, when the study was conducted at the same festivals, only 7% of the tested pills did not contain MDMA.
Their report also notes research from the Wedinos harm reduction project, which found that about 15% of products sold as MDMA that they tested in 2021 contained only cathinones and 14% only caffeine. Two-thirds of the product sold as MDMA, which analyzes, contains the drug.
Pascoe said: “During this unprecedented turbulence in the drug market, MDMA-like substances were sold incorrectly to unknown customers.
The report, published in the journal Drug Science, Policy and Law, says the findings suggest a “substantial change in drugs in the UK between 2019 and 2021” and adds that counterfeiting poses additional unknown risks to the health of people who use illicit drugs. drugs’.
This suggests that the blocking of Covid has led to the restriction or cessation of production of MDMA suppliers. When nightclubs and festivals reopened in the summer of 2021, there was a sudden increase in demand for “party drugs”, but MDMA manufacturers, especially in the Netherlands, were slowly increasing their supply.
Sign up for the First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every weekday morning at 7am BST
The report, led by The Loop, including researchers at Cardiff University and the University of Liverpool, said the removal of crime and dark web platforms may also have disrupted MDMA availability, adding that the impact of Brexit ranged from a shortage of drivers to trucks to currency fluctuations probably played an important role.
It concludes: “This study highlights a period of unprecedented turbulence in the drug market in the United Kingdom. We speculate that the shortage may be related to Brexit-related disruptions to legal and illegal supply chains, combined with the cessation of MDMA production.
Add Comment