For years The Netherlands is known to be the turn table in the world wide XTC production and trade. Apart from a lot of production also the export of the synthetic pills is organised from the Dutch low lands.
Apart from the possibility to bring an XTC pill to a drug centre for a test to see what is in it, for a while it was also possible for users to test pills on house parties. Safer for the users and easy to find out what pill is on the market.
When a dangerous pill appeared on the market, it was easy to warn the public with flyers with warnings. But now the Dutch government decided to ban the testing of pills on parties, since to them it legitimises the use of synthetic drugs.
A crew from the Scottish BBC program Eòrpa travels to the Netherlands to film for a background reportage about XTC, synthetic drug use, prevention and about Dutch synthetic drugs branch.
A public prosecutor that is working for the Unit Synthetic Drugs, a multi-disciplined organisation that focuses on the fight against XTC, is interviewed about the fight against the production of and the export in synthetic drugs,. Also a specialist from the Ministry of Health is interviewed because also prevention plays a big role in the Dutch policy and approach.
At Novadic Kentron, an expert organisation for addiction care and addiction medicines in the province Brabant a care worker show how testing of synthetic pills works and explains why they test pills and a house party partygoers are interviewed about the use of synthetic drugs and about the ban on testing pills on parties.
For this reportage Featurez proposed the idea for the story, did the research, set-up and planning of the filming, booked a rental van and did the driving, accompanied the filming, did the interviews and the translations.