Patterns and trends of amphetamine-type stimulants and other drugs ...

Regional Trends/ East and Southeast Asia
Ecstasy-related arrests – Just less than 2% of the ATS-related arrests in the region were related
to ecstasy in 2009, totaling 2,654 arrests, compared with 3,333 arrests in the previous year.
The majority of the arrests were made in Indonesia, which reported 1,919 arrests or nearly twothird
of the regional arrests for 2009. Nearly all countries able to report ecstasy arrests showed
a decline in gures for 2009 (Table 5). However, many countries in the region are unable to
provide data that clearly distinguishes ecstasy from other types of ATS.
Table 5. Ecstasy-related arrests in East and Southeast Asia, 2004 – 2009
Country
Number of ecstasy-related arrests
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
Brunei Darussalam
0 0 2 0 3 10
Cambodia 0 1 0 1 7
China
Hong Kong (SAR) 468 284 283 224 315 157
Indonesia 1,454 2,274 1,984 1,919
Japan 450 403 370 296 281 107
Lao PDR
Malaysia 395 228 182 119 83
Myanmar 6 9 4 8 6 0
Philippines
Republic of Korea
Singapore 94 91 67 78 68 21
Thailand 749 646 459 410 550 357
Viet Nam
Total 3,221 1,829 1,413 3,473 3,333 2,654
= Not reported
Source: DAINAP
Australia does not disaggregate arrest data for ATS. New Zealand also does not provide
ecstasy-related arrest data.
Ecstasy seizures – Seizures of ecstasy pills have uctuated in the region over the past six
years. This is partly due to varying reporting standards over the years, including different classi
cations of seizures between ecstasy and methamphetamine, as well as improvements in
disaggregating data between various synthetic drugs.
As suggested by forensic data reported to DAINAP, many of the seized drugs marketed on the
street as ‘ecstasy’ in the region contain psychoactive substances other than simply MDMA 3 , such
as ketamine and/or methamphetamine. Hence, caution should be used when assessing statistics
related to ecstasy in countries which do not have ATS data and classi cation systems or the
appropriate forensic and analytical facilities.
Seizures of ‘ecstasy’ pills declined by almost half in 2009, with 1.6 million pills seized during the
year compared with 3 million pills seized in 2008. Signi cantly fewer pills were reported seized
by Indonesia and Thailand. Pill seizures peaked at 5.7 million in 2007 but have since decreased
more than 71%. China accounted for the largest numbers of seized pills which in 2009 amounted
to two-thirds of ‘ecstasy’ pills seized region-wide.
Table 6. Ecstasy seizures in East and Southeast Asia, 2004 – 2009
Country
Number of ‘ecstasy’ pills seized
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
Brunei Darussalam 50 2 15
Cambodia 1,906 232 300 33 3,352
China 3,000,000 2,342,397 454,145 2,219,353 1,077,552 1,062,138
3
3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine, or one of its related analogues.
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