A new ecstasy-like drug produced in China that has been linked to at least 125 deaths is feared to have spread to Britain, the National Crime Agency has warned in an alert to summer festival-goers. The United Nations (UN) has ordered a worldwide ban on N-Ethylnorpentylone in an attempt to close down its production in illegal psychoactive drugs “factories” in China which have flooded the market. It has been found in one in 20 samples of Ecstasy, or MDMA, tested by The Loop, a social enterprise set up by professor Fiona Measham, a former Government drugs adviser, which will this summer provide its free drug testing service at around a dozen festivals.

Matt Noffs, the chief executive of the Ted Noffs Foundation and a spokesman for the Take Control Campaign for Safer, Saner Drug Laws, and Alex Wodak, the president of the Drug Law Reform Foundation, discuss the legalization of ecstasy. "People need time to think about it. Despite the breakthroughs, the politics of this is still fiercely difficult. But, on the other hand, let’s remember what’s important about this: it’s human life, the sacredness of human life and also the difficulty that young people have in the world today. Drug reform makes a material difference to young people – it’s about their future health and safety." (See also: Now that the ACT has given marijuana the green light, could (and should) MDMA be next?)

North Brabant is Europe's biggest producer of synthetic drugs, such as ecstasy and amphetamine. In 2017, 21 active ecstasy laboratories were dismantled in the EU, up from 11 in 2016 — and all of them were in the Netherlands, according to a report released by the EU drugs agency in June. Local government experts estimate the annual volume of waste from illicit drug production is about 255,000 kg per year. Most of it is dumped in the countryside, resulting in 109 reported findings in 2018, up from 83 in 2017. "It's a very complex issue, but we must seek to regulate this type of drugs on an EU-level in a different way," says Maarten Groothuizen, MP and justice spokesman for the D66 party, hinting at the Dutch gedoogbeleid (“tolerance policy”) that's already in place for the sale of cannabis in coffee shops.

There is a real concern among many scientists that the government's classification of ecstasy as Class A overstates the danger it poses to society and inhibits important research that could help people suffering from depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Another area where MDMA could be useful is in the treatment of depression and anxiety. Scientists believe it could be successful at targeting the part of the brain that causes rumination and repetitive thinking about negative experiences.

The ultimate goal of a campaign by charity Unharm called Let’s be honest/Change the story, is to decriminalise all drug use in Australia by 2030. One of the major tactics Unharm is mimicking the strategy of gay equality law reform movements: by persuading people to “come out” about their use. Will Tregoning, Unharm’s CEO, sees a decriminalised future looking like an improved form of the system we have for alcohol. The idea of incremental change is based on the model proposed by the Queensland Productivity Commission in 2019: “Begin by decriminalising drug use and move from there to legalisation of supply starting with cannabis and MDMA. Without the fear of criminalisation we can also have more open and honest conversations about drugs, to help get the later law reforms right.”

Psychedelic drugs are more likely to be associated with hippies and the counterculture of the 1960s than people in white lab coats and clinical trials. But that might soon change. Increasingly, scientists are looking at whether these mind-altering drugs - which also include mescaline and DMT among others - might also have the potential to be mind-healing. A number of small studies have found psychedelics to show promise in treating mental health disorders like depression, addiction and post-traumatic stress disorder, often where other treatments have failed. Now UK researchers are about to take part in the first major trials into whether one of these hallucinogenic drugs could be more effective than a leading antidepressant in the treatment of depression.

The severe restrictions on movement and activities during the coronavirus pandemic had little effect on Europeans' appetite for illegal drugs in 2020, according to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA). Cannabis use remained "stable" and at "high levels," said the EU agency in its yearly report. In 2020, it found, 15.4 percent of Europeans aged between 15-34 made use of the drug, mostly unchanged over 2019. The availability of harder drugs like cocaine also continued unchanged, notes the report, citing large seizures in 2020. In the case of heroin, it writes in a supplementary report, data from 10 hospitals shows "no overall change in the number of presentations associated with heroin between January and September 2020" when compared with the previous year.

Together with prevention worker Judith Noijen of the Jellinek Clinic, crimninologist Ton Nabben published the 25th edition of Antenne, a large-scale study of drug use. Using questionnaires, one-on-one interviews and drug tests, it paints a clear picture of drug use among youth and young adults in Amsterdam. Amsterdam is the only city in the Netherlands that measures the status of drugs and users so precisely. Nabben is in favour of regulation, whereby the government supplies the substance under strict conditions and provides targeted information. That would be feasible for MDMA, for example, the main component of ecstasy.

The online sale of illegal drugs is higher per head of the Dutch population than in any other major western country, according to a new report commissioned by the justice ministry. An analysis by independent research group Rand looked at 50 encrypted webshops to estimate the size of the online markets. The online market is still relatively small, the researchers say. Dark web sites in the Netherlands account for $13m a year. By contrast Dutch cannabis cafes, where small amounts of marijuana are sold under licence, are estimated to sell drugs worth €1bn a year. (See also: UK is biggest online drug dealing country in Europe)

The police busted and dismantled fewer synthetic drug labs and cannabis plantations last year, latest figures show. The number of discovered drug labs fell by 35 percent. The number of cocaine laundries, crystallization sites, and packaging sites was 63 percent lower. The police attributed the decrease to them arresting various drug gangs and criminal networks after breaking into encrypted phone services like EncroChat, Sky, and ANOM. Last year, the police also dismantled fewer cannabis plantations - 2,285 compared to 2,894 in 2020. This number has been falling for years. In 2017, the police dismantled over 4,600 cannabis farms. (See also: Fewer drugs labs dismantled as criminals are forced to change tack)

Dutch police have dismantled 42 laboratories producing the party drug ecstasy this year, up from 29 in 2012 and almost double the 2011 total, Nos television reported. Police have also been alerted to almost twice as many dumps of left-over chemicals this year as in 2012, indicating production is up sharply, the justice ministry figures show. Most of the pills produced in the Netherlands are destined for foreign consumption. The trade is lucrative because Dutch ecstasy is of high quality and is much more expensive in other countries than in the Netherlands. The labs are mainly located in Brabant, where marijuana growers are making the switch to other drugs. (See also: Six out of 10 clubbers have taken ecstasy in the past year)

The amount of active ingredients in ecstasy pills in the Netherlands has almost doubled in 10 years, according to the Trimbos addiction institute, which runs a nationwide testing service. In 2005, there was an average of 81 mg of MDMA in a pill but last year that had gone up to 150 mg, according to the institute’s 2015 monitoring report. The highest concentration of MDMA recorded last year was 293 mg. (See also: Drug users favoring “ecstasy light” as street XTC rises in potency | A new study says MDMA purity levels are at an all-time high | Recent changes in Europe’s MDMA/ecstasy market)

Chief Minister Andrew Barr says the federal government should stick to trying to beat dangerous drug gangs instead of becoming "obsessed" with the ACT's new cannabis legalisation laws, as he flagged the possibility of decriminalising MDMA sometime in the future. Mr Barr said any federal intervention to overturn the lawswould be "a massive overreaction". Asked whether there were plans to decriminalise other drugs like MDMA, he said said further harm minimisation laws could be on the agenda at "some time in the future". But he said it wouldn't be happening in the next four to five years. (See also: Now that the ACT has given marijuana the green light, could (and should) MDMA be next?)

A Dutch political movement is calling for the legalization of the psychoactive drug ecstasy – and has opened a shop to promote its cause. The youth wing of the Dutch Liberal Democrats says decriminalizing MDMA would make drug-taking safer. The Young Democrats opened the shop in downtown Amsterdam – but just for one day. The group said it aimed to show “why regulation is better than leaving the distribution to illegal street dealers.”Sadly for the party people, the shop still has to respect the law, so it’ll be handing out placebos, not real MDMA pills. The group says the law should be changed to prevent partygoers dying from tainted ecstasy pills, citing in particular one case of seven deaths in 2014. (See also: ‘Moralising about drug use doesn’t help, but neither does trivialising the problems’)

The Dutch government should regulate the production of party drug ecstasy to remove it from the criminal circuit, GroenLinks parliamentarian Kathalijne Buitenweg says in the Volkskrant. ‘The government does not have to make the pills itself but should regulate production,’ to make sure they meet proper quality standards, Buitenweg said. ‘It is not just a question of health but a question of doing something about the worrying increase in criminal power,’ she told the paper. The MP wants the government to take the initiative to revise UN drugs treaties. Breda mayor Paul Depla also told the Volkskrant the government should take a stand.

Cocaine, ecstasy and amphetamines should be “nationalised” and sold legally in government-run pharmacies to undermine global drug-related crime, the UK drugs reform charity Transform has recommended. In the book 'How to regulate stimulants: A practical guide' – with a foreword written by the former prime minister of New Zealand Helen Clark – Transform has sought to set out practical ways to sell the drugs in state-run special pharmacies as an alternative to what it calls the “unwinnable war against drugs”. The book includes a mock-up of what a packet of legal, prescription cocaine would look like, including health warnings, which Transform said could be sold over the counter by specially trained chemists. (See also: A plan for legalising cocaine, MDMA and amphetamines)

For campaigners advocating drug liberalisation, it is an image that is almost too good to be true: a store down a cobbled street in Utrecht legally selling ecstasy or MDMA for recreational use. The XTC shop in the centre of the Netherlands’ fourth largest city has even been visited in recent days by a government minister, who was pictured examining its bubblegum-style vending machines and in-house educational videos. Unfortunately for drug reformers, however, the “shop” is not – yet – the result of the extension of the famous Dutch gedoogbeleid (tolerance policy) on cannabis use and sale. The health minister was instead visiting a mock-up of how an ecstasy retailer might look – with three models inside of how the drug might be sold in practice depending on the level of state regulation.

The Drugs Monitoring and Information System (DIMS) in the Netherlands can proudly claim to be the oldest drug checking service in the world. It began unauthorized operations back in 1989, a time when use of “club drugs” was increasing in the country, and was formalized in 1992. By 1999, it was receiving funding from national and local governments. Today, DIMS is operated by the Trimbos Institute, a government-funded agency, and runs over 30 offices around the country, serving tens of thousands of people every year. “Our 27 years of research and experience shows that there’s no sign of drug checking encouraging drug use at all. Most likely the opposite is true.”

As Canada continues to work out the kinks of legalizing cannabis—and jurisdictions around the world follow suit—harm reduction advocates and drug policy researchers have their sights set on the regulation of all drugs, a reform they say is necessary to save lives and look at the issue from a public health perspective. Legalizing drugs would be different from decriminalizing drugs—the latter would make it legal to possess and use small amounts of banned substances but not to produce or sell them. Legalization would mean securing a safe supply of drugs and, with varying degrees of strictness, making those drugs accessible to the public.