Car­ni­val may be sweet—but be­ware of “Ec­sta­sy” dur­ing the na­tion­al fes­ti­val.

The warn­ing about the no­to­ri­ous par­ty drug—and oth­er drugs such as “Roofies” (Ro­hyp­nol)—came yes­ter­day from Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young as Car­ni­val 2019 takes off.

Speak­ing dur­ing yes­ter­day’s post-Cab­i­net press brief­ing, Young said he re­ceived a re­port in the last 48 hours from state agen­cies which had con­fis­cat­ed 1,627 Ec­sta­sy pills be­tween De­cem­ber 12, 2018 and Feb­ru­ary 20.

“We’re warn­ing cit­i­zens and vis­i­tors alike, es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing Car­ni­val, of a drug (Ec­sta­sy) that seems to be cir­cu­lat­ing—please try to avoid it,” Young said.

Ec­sta­sy (MD­MA 3,4—Meth­yl­ene­dioxymetham­phet­a­mine) is a syn­thet­ic, psy­choac­tive drug with stim­u­lant and psy­che­del­ic ef­fects that’s pri­mar­i­ly used as a recre­ation­al drug. It’s known as “X,” “XTC” and oth­er names and be­came pop­u­lar as a club/par­ty/rave drug over decades. It can cause feel­ings of eu­pho­ria/ex­treme hap­pi­ness and al­tered sen­sa­tions. But bad side ef­fects in­clude in­som­nia, nau­sea, rapid heart­beat and ad­dic­tion. The ini­tial “high” can be fol­lowed by se­vere de­pres­sion af­ter com­ing “down.” Some­times called “the love pill,” it’s said to height­en per­cep­tions of colour, sound and sen­sa­tion.

Young said Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry nar­cot­ic ex­perts and po­lice had giv­en him a re­port about a pro­lif­er­a­tion of Ec­sta­sy pills net­ted af­ter raids be­tween De­cem­ber and Feb­ru­ary. The in­for­ma­tion showed 16 dif­fer­ent types of Ec­sta­sy tablets were seized in raids, he said.

He said in re­cent meet­ings of se­cu­ri­ty heads, one of the is­sues dis­cussed was the use of il­le­gal drugs at Car­ni­val and there’s been an es­ca­la­tion of this. Young said he didn’t know who the users are, “but I’m told it’s pre­dom­i­nant­ly used in par­ties and events.”

He, how­ev­er, stressed that there are of­ten “bad mix­es” of the drug and peo­ple may re­act dif­fer­ent­ly. He said he didn’t have the in­for­ma­tion with him on who’s sup­ply­ing the Ec­sta­sy. Warn­ing that use of this and oth­er il­le­gal drugs is a crim­i­nal of­fence, Young said Gov­ern­ment is now work­ing with the Unit­ed Na­tions, which is pro­vid­ing ma­chines to test for Ec­sta­sy.

Dol­ing out Car­ni­val ad­vice, Young added, “Peo­ple, par­tic­u­lar­ly fe­males, should be care­ful, be aware of your sur­round­ings, walk in groups and stay with your friends who’ll look af­ter you.

“Don’t ac­cept food or drink from strangers al­so, be­cause there are - in ad­di­tion to Ec­sta­sy—‘Roofies’ (the drug, Ro­hyp­nol) al­so. These types of drugs can af­fect your abil­i­ty to func­tion.”

Ro­hyp­nol (Flu­ni­trazepam) is used in some coun­tries to treat se­vere in­som­nia but has al­so achieved some no­to­ri­ety glob­al­ly af­ter in­stances where the drug was used as a date rape drug.

Young said the raids which have tak­en Ec­sta­sy off the mar­ket—and off the street—would like­ly mean that the price would have in­creased. Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh mean­while as­sured that lo­cal hos­pi­tals have pro­to­cols to han­dle cas­es of peo­ple over­dos­ing on drugs. But Young said as in the case of gun­shot wounds, ques­tions would be asked.