By Stuart Clark
It was always going to grab the headlines - a 19-year-old Greystones man pulling his eye out with a pair of pliers after taking three ecstasy pills at a house party.

He was about to do the same to his other eye when gardai arrived on the scene and forcibly restrained him.

While the tabloids were being predictably horrified, those with a more analytical approach to the issue of drug abuse were wondering if the facts were quite as they seemed.

In the 15 or so years that ecstasy has been widely available in Ireland, there have been no previous reports of users engaging in spontaneous self-harm.

The conjecture was that the pills the Co Wicklow man bought must have been cut with something else, possibly LSD, which is far more mentally disorienting and likely to result in emotional trauma.

The mystery was solved on October 24 when, almost two months after the Greystones incident, the Department of Health issued a garda-initiated public warning about asubstance called 2,5-dimethoxy-4-bromoamphetamine (DOB). Referring to Disprin-sized white tablets that are being sold as "Snowballs", the department said: "This drug can cause very pronounced hallucinations, thus making it different to ecstasy. The effects last from eight to 24 hours depending on the amount taken. Larger doses of DOB result in memory loss, irrational outbursts of violence and the likelihood of self-har m. Spasms of blood vessels leading to gangrene have been reported."

The statement also referred to the fact that DOB takes twice as long to kick in as ecstasy, encouraging people who think they've ob-tained dud or weak pills to pop another.

With the threshold dosage of DOB one to five milligrams, compared to ecstasy's 100 to 150 milligrams,the potential for overdose is obvious.

The Department of Health has been accused in the past of inflating the dangers of recreational drug use, but this time it is spot on - DOB is a highly unpredictable substance that can kill.

Ask the Garda National Drugs Unit (GNDU) when they became aware of DOB's availability here and all they'll tell you is "late summer".

They're equally guarded about how much of the drug has been recovered - "there have b e en s ei z ures, but they're listed with the figures for ecstasy" - and the dosages involved - "we don't discuss that sort of thing".

In other words, the gardai are refusing to say how much DOB they think is out there, their success to date in detecting it and how many pills constitute an overdose.

Combined with the protracted delay in asking the Department of Healthto issue a public warning, it paints a picture of a force ill equipped to deal with the current proliferation of synthetic hallucinogens.

The latest of these is 2C-I, atriple strength `super ecstasy', which is causing serious concern across the Irish Sea. Experience has shown that, if a drug is available in Britain, it's only a matter of time before it puts in an appearance here.

"We believe that the diversification of the ecstasy market could lead to further fatalities," says Les Fiander of the British National Criminal Drugs Unit (NCIS).

"The market has become greedy for both new drugs and for the vast sums of money that can be made from them. Dealers and manufacturers are pushing any substance - counterfeit or real drug - that they're able to sell in a buyers' market.

"We at the NCIS are particularly concerned," he adds, "because intelligence tells us that gangs who've historically been involved in other areas of organised crime - ranging from robbery to the importation of cocaine - are moving into this area. International cooperation and watertight legislation are the only effective means of dealing with this problem."

"Inter-force and service cooperation" was cited last month, when 750,000 ecstasy tablets believed to be on their way to the north of Ireland were seized near Amsterdam.

PSNI Drug Squad intelligence suggests that the paramilitary Loyalist Volunteer Force was linked to the deal,
which was worth a likely €1 million to the traffickers.

Although the authorities were successful that time, it is estimated that 75 per cent of international drug consignments make it through to their final destination.

The GNDU has tr ied combating this by basing liaison officers in France, Holland and Spain, but still the supply of illegal drugs remains constant here.

With prohibition so clearly failing to work, agencies such as the Merchant's Quay Project in Dublin are increasingly adopting the `harm reduction' model favoured in other EU countries such as Germany, Holland, Italy, Portugal and Britain.

"Most of our work would be with hardened drug users, but we did get involved with a project on recreational drugs a few years ago, which resulted in the clubscene.ie website," says a project spokesperson.

"We don't have DOB up there yet because it's only just filtering through, but when we do we'll be as honest and non-judgmental about it as we are other drugs. The idea is to give people accurate information so that they can make the best possible decisions."

Harm reduction has been taken a step further in Holland where police turn ablind eye to independent drug agencies carrying out pill testing in clubs.

Formal monitoring is also conducted by the health ministry, which presents its findings on a well publicised website.

When a batch of ecstasy containing an unusually large amount of strychnine was discovered, Dutch drug users knew about it within 24 hours.

It's worth pointing out that there is no monitoring or random testing of illegal drugs in Ireland, with only pills which have been seized by them making it to the garda forensics lab.

Would DOB's arrival in Ireland have been detected sooner if the garda followed the example of their Dutch counterparts? There's a 19- year-old and his family in Greystones who might be interested in the answer.

"We've come a long way since `Just Say No!', but there's still a lot of rubbish talked about drugs," maintains a disgruntled youth worker who declined to be named for fear of losing his job.

"Kids need to be warned about the dangers of illegal drugs, sure, but in a way that mirrors their own experiences. Lie or exaggerate about one substance and they're not going to believe you when you warn them off another. That's my concern now in relation to something genuinely life-threatening like DOB."

In a landmark 2001 interview with Hot Press magazine, the then-Minister of State with responsibility for the National Drugs Strategy, Eoin Ryan, publicly dis-agreed with his Justice Minister boss, John O'Donoghue, by saying that there was a distinction to be made between soft and hard drugs.

He also dismissed the notion of cannabis being a `gateway' drug and said that no one should go to prison for personal use of it. Not long afterwards Ryan was moved from his post - the inference being that the government is still locked into a zero tolerance mindset.

The opposite is true in Br itain, where the openness of the drugs debate is underlined by the comments made recently by former Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam.

"Let's start looking at how drugs can be legalised and our society can be decriminalised," she urges.

"Let's recognise reality and start to reduce the numbers who are cluttering up our prisons. Let's start selling drugs through outlets such as off-licences, where the likelihood of dealing with someone holding a gun is virtually zero, unlike the street traders of today.

"Let's admit that we're getting it wrong, by allowing our fear and prejudice against certain drugs to drive us to pursue wrongheaded policies, which only produce damaging social results.

"Large numbers of people smoke marijuana, particularly teenagers and young people, and many also take ecstasy and cocaine," Mowlam says.

"They are not criminals; they are people you know. They are people who are likely to be sitting next to you at work or living in your homes. But all these people are being brought into almost daily contact with organised crime. Isn't this a most foolish situation?" she asks.

Far from criticising her views as being overly liberal, two chief constables said the woman responsible for the British government drug policy between 1999 and 2001 had got it exactly right.

Back in Ireland, there was another DOB s care last weekend when a 21-year-old Co Waterford man, John Mansfield, was found dead in his flat after taking what he believed to be ecstasy. Could he have fallen victim to a rogue `Snowball' pill?

The initial post mortem suggests not, but the gardai admit they won't know for certain until two weeks time when the full toxicology report is completed.

Talking to regional radio station Beat 102-103 about the tragedy and the wider ecstasy/DOB debate, Superintendent Michael Blake from Dungarvan said: "The community here is very shocked by what's oc curred. The amount of drugs we've seized in Dungarvan and West Waterford (in recent months) have increased substantially. There's probably an upward trend in people taking drugs. My own view is that the gardai seizing illegal drugs is only one small part of it.

"People must be made aware through the Department of Health and the health boards of the dangers. Consuming any quantity can be fatal or cause damage to one's vital organs," he says.

Beat 102-103 isn't the only radio station to have addressed the issue - an item on 2FM's Gerry Ryan Show generated what he describes as "an incredible response" and anecdotal evidence of `Snowballs' being offered for sale all over the country.

The final word belongs to Action for Drugs Awareness, the charity set up by the parents of deceased ecstasy victim Leah Betts. "There's no harm reduction message for DOB, not even from Holland. There's no doubt that this is a highly dangerous drug to fool around with."

Stuart Clark is a writer with Hot Press magazine