Here, party-goers can take their Ecstasy pills to a branch of a drug treatment center to have them tested and the contents analyzed. The pill is then handed back. If the clinic technicians cannot immediately determine the content of a pill, they offer to send it to a laboratory for further tests. That's not a problem for most users, because they tend to buy their pills in batches of five or six. Officials also say their strategy of tolerating use should not be interpreted by their American counterparts as tolerating trafficking and manufacturing.
Ecstasy remains illegal in Holland and is classified as a hard drug, like heroin and cocaine.
Authorities make war on production sites. In the past year they have dismantled 35, said Peter Reijnders, who heads the Synthetic Drugs Unit, a multi-agency group created in 1997 that includes customs agents, police, tax enforcers and public prosecutors. But the Netherlands is not the only producing country. We see more and more production coming up in other Western countries, Belgium and Greece, and also in Eastern Europe. . . . That is why it is important to put emphasis on international cooperation.