A wild summer of ecstasy in the Balearics

This summer the Guardia Civil siezed a total 22.000 ecstasies in Spain, 1.603 in the Balearics. The drug squad in the Balearics has been enjoying increasing success over the past two years and this year has played a key role in a number of major international drugs busts. The main focus of police attention in the crack down on designer drugs has been in Ibiza, while in Majorca significant amounts of hashish, cocaine and heroin have been seized. A series of teenage deaths caused by designer drugs abuse in Spain set alarm bells ringing this year and in Ibiza this summer, clubbers were being warned about a potentially lethal anaesthetic substance, known as liquid ecstasy, which was believed to have been brought in from the UK. Revellers can unknowingly overdose on the colourless, odourless liquid from water bottles passed around clubs and the island's police spent the summer working in close co-operation with their British counterparts in the war on drugs. Dr Francisco Mueles, in charge of casualty at the Can Misses hospital in Ibiza town, says that the liquid form of ecstasy is at the centre of a new and dangerous holiday phenomenon. “It worries us a lot because we don't understand how the drug works and much less so when it's taken with other toxic substances like alcohol and cocaine.” Easily made from industrial solvent and dissolved in water, GHB has claimed twelve lives in Britain, where the Home Office intends to ban it by the end of this year. Medics say although most people recover from the comas, GHB poses long term risks for the young people tempted to take it. Dr Mueles said: “It raises a series of questions about brain damage in the long term. It's an experiment by the market. “This is a very dangerous drug and the market will soon discover that when the body count begins to rise.”