Paramethoxy-metamphetamine ( PMMA ) has been associated with at least five ecstasy deaths in B.C. over the last six months. On Jan. 16, the BC Coroners Service confirmed that it was investigating a fourth 2012 fatality believed to be the result of an ecstasy overdose - a 16-year-old Langley male.

"It's a learning process for us; we're gathering information as we go along," said chief coroner Lisa Lapointe. Over the past six years, the rates of ecstasy-related fatalities in the province have more than doubled.

Whereas 2006 saw seven deaths in the province, the three years leading up to 2011 each saw at least 20 people lose their life to the drug. Last weekend's death brings the early 2012 count to four. "Does that mean that we'll see these numbers continue to climb over the years? We certainly hope not," Lapointe said.

Can that message be driven home any more acutely than it has in this community? In the past five weeks, the popular man-made drug has taken two lives, and is responsible for another that hangs in the balance.

On Nov. 27, Tyler Miller, 20, took ecstasy. He was a gifted Abbotsford musician and student, with great career plans. It's all over. He was dead in eight hours.

On Dec. 19, 17-year-old Cheryl McCormack of Abbotsford ingested ecstasy with some friends ostensibly as a weight loss aid. She became unresponsive, and three days later, she died. She was a bright, fun and athletic teen.

On New Year's Eve, a 24-year-old Abbotsford woman engaged in "recreational" use of ecstasy with three friends. By 6 a.m. she was in critical condition in hospital, where she remains today.

A 24-year-old Abbotsford woman is battling for her life after ingesting ecstasy with three friends on New Year's Eve. Abbotsford Police Const. Ian MacDonald said the woman, whose name has not been released, was at a home in the 33700 block of George Ferguson Way when she became unconscious and unresponsive.

She was treated on scene at about 6 a.m. on New Year's Day by BC Ambulance and Abbotsford Fire Rescue personnel before being transported to hospital. MacDonald said the women, ages 23 to 31, took "numerous" blue ecstasy pills throughout the evening, starting at the residence. They then went out for the night and returned to the home, ingesting the last pills at about 4 a.m. The friends indicated that the victim consumed more pills than they did, MacDonald said.

Police also raided three residential properties as part of the months-long investigation by CFSEU's Outlaw Motorcycle Gang Enforcement Unit. Two men have been taken into custody and police are searching for three others, Whalen said.

More than 150 police from various forces executed the search warrants simultaneously beginning at 5 a.m. Thursday, including members of the RCMP, Vancouver Police, Municipal and RCMP Emergency Response Teams and the Clandestine Laboratories Unit.

The largest lab was found in East Vancouver in a warehouse at 2659 Lillooet Street where a company named Pharmaceuticals is based. Throughout the day Thursday, firefighters, hazard materials specialists and police remained at the scene just off East Broadway and Lillooet. Half a block was behind police tape.

The July 2011 raid was significant not only because it netted five arrests for suspected drug production but because it was the culmination of three years of lobbying the federal government to make illegal the possession of chemicals used to produce methamphetamine and ecstasy.

That chance 2007 meeting on the Bowen Island ferry between John Weston, now MP for West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country, and Cpl. Richard De Jong of the North Vancouver RCMP had all the makings of a Hollywood screenplay:

An aspiring young politician promises a veteran street cop he'll take the gloves off law enforcement to help them fight street-drug manufacturers if he's sent to the capital. "He offered to give me a legal education on illegal drugs," Weston told The Outlook, "knowing that I might be elected and knowing that he was right that I perhaps needed an education on something that was so important to young people and to families in the riding I now represent."

A promise kept: Weston goes to Ottawa and Cpl. De Jong's plea is echoed in the country's highest halls of power. But the barriers of bureaucracy went up and the new anti-drug bill that seemed a slam dunk for Weston became a lengthy battle of attrition with fellow politicians and lawmakers.

Dr. Mark Tyndall, chief of infectious diseases at the Ottawa Hospital, says he thinks this is a very important decision. “I expected this, but not with a unanimous vote,” he says. “Not only does this decision mean the clinic should be open, but it makes drug addiction a health issue, not a criminal justice issue.”

Mark Kleiman is a veteran of the drug-rhetoric wars. The problem with the drug debate, he says, "is that it's conducted between the disciples of Michel Foucault and the disciples of the Marquis de Sade." Foucault believed that the only crime is punishment. De Sade thought the meaner the punishment, the better.

Mr. Kleiman, a bushy bearded liberal Democrat, is a professor of public policy at UCLA and a leading expert on drug policy. His new book, Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know, is an invaluable guide to the facts. He favours harm-reduction programs such as Insite. But he also thinks that people who endorse the disease model of addiction can be just as ideological and simple-minded as the law-and-order crowd. "Some disease proponents ignore the fact that drug abuse is a disorder of the will," he says. "In my view, disease and bad habits are completely consistent descriptions of the same behaviour."

The rate of hospitalizations following overdose skyrocketed in people aged 18 to 24, the new study found: overdoses involving alcohol in combination with other drugs increased 76%; overdoses involving drugs other than alcohol rose 55%; and those involving alcohol alone went up 25%.

The most striking rise was seen in overdoses involving prescription painkillers, which leapt 122% over the same period.

In 2008, researchers estimated that there were 114,000 hospitalizations for single or multiple drug overdoses, 29,000 for combination alcohol and other drug overdoses and 29,000 for alcohol-only ODs.

Health authority calls plan an extension of other harm reduction programs

A new pilot project to supply free pipes to crack cocaine users in the Downtown Eastside hasn’t even begun but is already sparking a lot of attention. Federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson lashed out last week at the initiative by Vancouver Coastal Health, which will begin distributing new crack pipes sometime this fall as part of its provincially funded harm reduction strategy.

Gavin Wilson, the health authority’s director of public affairs, doesn’t see anything controversial about the plan, which is expected to cost between $50,000 and $60,000.

"I think most people know that crystal meth is exceedingly dangerous, and I think we've seen campaigns from every level of government not to use it. I think most youth have got that message," explained Leduc Community Drug Action Committee (LCDAC) coordinator Heather Graham, who cautioned that more education is still needed.

"What's being marketed as ecstasy in Leduc is actually crystal meth. So it's still an issue, and youth are accessing it without realizing it."

"We don't see a lot of meth out here," agreed Leduc RCMP Drug Enforcement officer John Baker, who noted that education shedding a negative light on the drug has been effective. "It's sort of a niche drug for some people, since it does have a stigma."

According to the Government of Alberta's Premier's Task Force on Crystal Meth, it is an illegal "easy and inexpensive to make" drug with recipes including household ingredients like paint thinner, drain cleaner and cold medications. Crystal meth is a highly addictive stimulant that causes a long high lasting from eight to 24 hours, and it is the smokeable form of the drug methamphetamine, a derivative of amphetamine. Meth users report increased concentration and extended periods of insomnia, along with side effects such as psychosis, seizures, heart attacks and strokes.