Memo to U.S.: oh yeah, your MDMA isn't pure

One of the reasons I enjoy reading Slate is their regularly cynical commentary on media coverage of the drug war. They seem to miss no opportunity to pick apart how the media is regularly suckered into a narrative that is not to be trusted. Case in point: the recent story about the DEADLY! combination of meth and ecstasy that is supposedly flooding our borders. As Slate points out in the most recent edition of "Stupidest Drug Story of the Week":

Back on Oct. 26, 2002, the National Post reported from Vancouver, B.C., that most ecstasy pills are "tainted" with other drugs. Citing a University of British Columbia and Royal Canadian Mounted Police study of confiscated pills purported to be ecstasy, the paper reported that "[l]ess than one-third of the tablets examined contained only one substance." One common additive was methamphetamine.

Another study of tablets seized at rave parties, this one by the RCMP and Health Canada and reported in the Nov. 18, 2004, Montreal Gazette, found methamphetamine in 23 percent of the 357 tablets tested. On Dec. 15, 2005, the National Post returned with another story datelined Vancouver that found methamphetamine in 95 of 125 tablets that also contained MDMA.

Thank god the drug czar is just now getting around to letting the rest of the world know about this menace!