Gardaí have seen a “huge increase” in demand for ecstasy this year on the back of a surge in the production of high-quality MDMA in Europe.
Brown powder ecstasy/PMMA batch
After many years of a drop-off in the manufacture of MDMA, producers have again been able to access the chemicals, known as precursors, needed to make the drug.
Gardaí have not had any reports yet of the toxic ecstasy/PMMA batch – which is being linked to the death of two young men in Kinsale – outside Cork, but warn that it could turn up at any time.
It has also emerged that two other people had severe reactions after ingesting the toxic batch at the party in Kinsale, but managed to pull through.
For more see
http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/europe-wide-rise-in-ecstasy-quality-triggers-surge-in-demand-207373.html
http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/toxic-batch-could-appear-across-the-country-any-time-207370.html
http://www.drugs.ie/news/article/hse_urges_caution_to_drug_users
About Cormac O'Keeffe
2018 was a special year for me: my debut novel Black Water was published. It was a long and bumpy ride, as a quick glance over my posts will show!
'Black Water' is a crime novel set in Dublin's gangland, along the evocative Grand Canal.
You'll also find some photography on this blog, particularly snaps that relate to my novel.
There are also some book reviews I have written, both fiction and non-fiction, many of them published in the Irish Examiner, a daily national newspaper in Ireland. I work as security correspondent there and have specialist interests in crime, drugs, policing, the justice system, communities and human rights.
Both my personal life and my professional life have fed into my novel, or, rather, have been poured into it.
My novel was granted a literature bursary by the Irish Arts Council in September 2014 and my journalistic work has won multiple awards from the Law Society of Ireland over many years, most recently in 2015.
Cormac O'Keeffe 