Ecstasy mixed with methamphetamine.

18:25 Vermont 0 Comments

The clover leaf is more than a good luck symbol for some these days.
That image, along with others like kittens and the Adidas logo, have been misappropriated by illicit drug manufacturers in Canada. The colored branding images are used to popularize a new drug being exported into the United States: Ecstasy mixed with methamphetamine.
The powders of the two drugs are pressed into pill form and smuggled across the U.S. border, according to law enforcement officials. Approximately 2 million tablets a week are manufactured in Canada, federal authorities say.
Vermont State Police say they are seeing the drug crop up in pockets around the state.
"It's started now, so it doesn't look like it's leaving," said Vermont State Police Lieutenant Leo Bachand, the commander of the Northern Drug Task Force.
Bachand said his team has made two controlled "hand-to-hand" buys of the drug from a man in St. Johnsbury. The orange pills, about the size of aspirin, came from Massachusetts, but Bachand said his team has arrested several people at the Canadian border attempting to cross with quantities of the drug that were manufactured in Canada.
According to Ted Woo, chief public affairs officer for the New England area for U.S. Customs and Border protection, there have been no major seizures of the drug in New England border states.
But local officials said they are starting to see it arrive in Vermont.
"We've made other arrests of small amounts that (were) manufactured up there in Canada," Bachand said. "Those pill presses put out in huge amounts."

Investigators said they purchased 10 pills one time and four pills another time from 27-year-old Christopher Laberge, of St. Johnsbury, who reportedly obtained the drugs from Massachusetts. Investigators paid $20 a pill for the Ecstasy mixed with methamphetamine.

Laberge will face charges of possession and sale of a controlled substance and aiding in the commission of a felony in Vermont District Court in St. Johnsbury on March 24.