A program which monitors waste water for drug use has shown a regional area in Tasmania as having the highest usage of MDMA anywhere in Australia.
According to the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission, this could be due to a dance music festival coinciding with the sample period in which results for the ominious-only-if-you-think-about-it National Wastewater Drug Monitoring Program Report were gathered.
As you can see, the spike is a dramatic one.
The area is being kept a secret due to fear of the region being “demonised”, being referred to only as ‘Site 18’ in the report – as if that Roswell-style code name won’t pique our interest even more.
“I’ve spoken to the scientists personally about this, they’ve noticed on weekends you may have a much higher consumption of ecstasy because you might have a music festival or some other event,” ACIC chief executive Chris Dawson told ABC Radio Hobart.
“It may show in August last year when we tested for seven consecutive days, there may have been an event, there may have been a shipment come in which might have been the reason why it has presented so high as opposed to some capital city.”
Despite calls to make the secret area known to the public, Dawson won’t be revealing where the spike occurred.
“We are sharing this with the authorities directly so that they know. We must, in the first instance, try and prevent the growth and the demand for drugs. If the demand is there, suppliers will come from all over the world.”
