In the past few weeks, during Operation Metropermata 2009, police in Jakarta, Indonesia and several other regions, have seized a little over $14 billion dollars worth of drugs and raw materials used in making the drugs – including ammonia, methanol acetone and ephedrine, a key ingredient within crystal methamphetamine.

Police conducted a tour on Friday of a Depok Factory that had been raided, which alone had over 9.8 tons of raw material, enough to make 5 kilograms of Ecstasy and 15 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine per day. Apparently, if all the raw material from that factory had been used, 11.5 million Ecstasy pills and hundreds of kilograms of high-grade crystal methamphetamine would have been able to have been made.

National Police chief Gen. Bambang Hendarso Danuri said:

That’s enough to drug the whole population of Jakarta.

Via wikipedia:

population of 8,489,910

Damn. An increase of the amount of drugs discovered in Indonesia has risen since 2006 when only 466,000 recovered was reported. Last year, the Ministry’s report claims that 1,291,000 were recovered. Police are worried that Indonesia is not just a haven for drug dealers but now also a mass production site. Police claim that the drug ring in Indonesia began in January and allegedly had ties to Thailand and Hong Kong.

Fifteen suspects have been arrested, who had acted as distributors, suppliers and workers. Three suspects fled the country and are currently being sought after on an international scale.

Houston, we have a problem. According to a survey, teens have given up smoking marijuana for pills and hallucinogens. The disturbing factor in all of this is; the study was conducted with teens from British Columbia… a place where pot has been common place for years.

It’s an interesting trend in British Columbia, as marijuana use for teens there has dropped for the tenth straight year but prescription drugs without a doctor’s consent, as well as hallucinogen drugs such as Ecstasy, are on the rise. Ecstasy use alone had increased by nine percent since 2003.

Unfortunately, the survey doesn’t explain why their teens have moved to pills.

The Toronto Star reports Canada needs to do slightly more to curb drug trafficking, as it has become the No. 1 source of ecstasy in the United States.

The 2009 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, released Friday, highlights the growth of methamphetamine “superlabs” throughout the country, particularly in British Columbia and Ontario.

Most of the bloggers who commented, (Canucks to be specific,) brought up a pretty good point: Canada should probably start worrying about the flow of drugs down south as soon as we start worrying about the flow of guns up north.

Although the United States isn’t the only country caught in this web of deception by our seemingly polite neighbors to the north, the report cites Canadian data indicating Canadian-produced meth has turned up around the world, including Australia, Japan and New Zealand.

How about what’s the deal with Canadian bacon, too? It’s not Canadian or bacon, those cheeky bastards.

Word.

After years of apocryphal horror stories, a recent large-scale study showed long-term, the effects of MDMA aren’t really that bad for you.

The UK Advisory Panel on the Misuse of Drugs found the results showed that mild memory loss is a common occurrence but the most harmful effect seems to be how someone’s system will react to the drug, with some cases even a small MDMA dosage leading to death from exhaustion or poisoning.

The study argues this is an extremely small minority, as millions of people take the drug every year in the UK and there were 30 deaths linked to the drug last year. The review also called for a rescheduling of the drug by class into a lesser category with cannabis.

Click here for the full report.

Wrapping up a series of raids Tuesday, police seized over more than 100 pounds (45 kg) of ecstacy with a street value of over $2 million. The amount of powder found in the series of labs around Northern California is thought to be enough to make 88,000 ecstasy pills.

The raids were part of a sting investigation that netted nine arrests aimed at shutting down a drug ring called “dangerous” by Attorney General Jerry Brown.

The seizures also included 23 pounds of psychedelic mushrooms and more than half a million dollars in cash, which was found in a different home. 30 pounds of marijuana said to be valued around $50,000, and what is thought to be LSD powder, was found in yet another house. The sting operation began on an anonymous tip to police about a potential drug lab, which then led to the surveillance that uncovered the drug coop.

The San Jose Mercury News also reported agents seized a .45-caliber handgun, thousands of dollars worth of chemicals, commercial-grade laboratory glassware and more than 100 gallons of toxic, poisonous and flammable liquids and solids. Hazardous chemicals and laboratory equipment filled 40 large barrels.

[img via Oakland Press]

Working on an anonymous tip, police raided a Sydney home and found 200,000 ecstasy tablets, and enough MDMA powder, the drug’s active ingredient, to make 200,000 more.

The West Australian reported that the uncompressed powder police found weighed roughly 110 pounds (50 kg) and the haul is thought to be large enough to actually affect drug supply in the city, a rare occurrence in even large-scale raids.

Two men who are thought to be the owners of the house — which had basically been turned into a drug lab to process MDMA — are wanted for questioning in connection with the seizure.

Want some eye candy for the weekend? How about the ecstasy rainbow?

Exactly 99 different ecstasy pills, all different colors, with all different logos. From the dollar sign to McDonald’s to the Playboy bunny – branding is king, even in the designer drug trade.

Click the image for a hi-res version.

[image copyright Erowid, 2007]

Ahead of a UK government meeting on the misuse of drugs, the UK Drugs Policy Commission has submitted a report to . UK uses an ‘A, B and C’ scale to dictate the danger of drugs and the correlating penalties for being caught with them.