Townsville’s top drug investigator Major and Organised Crime Squad officer-in-charge detective Senior Sergeant Brad Phelps has exposed the city’s MDMA scene as part of The Ripple Effect, an unprecedented special investigation into the world of illicit drugs in Australia.

Sen-Sgt Phelps said it was believed most of the MDMA that flowed into Townsville’s streets came from overseas, through the dark web or shipments from major traffickers, before it was broken down and distributed throughout regional Queensland.

He said those who peddled MDMA in the city were mainly young people who serviced large groups of customers who were like them. They enjoyed music festivals and the pumping Flinders St nightclub scene.

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“MDMA or ecstasy is a drug that’s designed and targeted and marketed towards the younger people in our community,” Sen-Sgt Phelps said.

“It’s perceived by these young people as a relatively safe drug, which is unfortunate because it’s not.”

The Townsville drug squad frequently brings down drug syndicates trafficking large amounts of cannabis and ice, widely considered as the two most prevalent illegal substances in the community.

Sen-Sgt Phelps said there were “difficulties and challenges” tracking down MDMA traffickers and dealers in the community.

“Most of the people that are involved are quite often young people who haven’t previously had involvement with the police so they’re what we call clean skins,” he said.

“(They) have had no involvement with the police, they start using small amounts of ecstasy, they then have a source who is reliable for that drug so they then start sourcing for their friends, and it becomes a snowball effect.”

What follows is a desire to make a profit and to fund a lifestyle that keeps building until they are in “over their head” and dealing in significant quantities, bringing them to the attention of police.

Sen-Sgt Phelps said the big busts were “few and far between” but finding people with quantities of pills was a weekly occurrence.

While the pills cost international drug traffickers just 32c each to produce, a single tablet in Townsville sells for between $25 and $50.

After two decades chasing drug dealers and traffickers, Sen-Sgt Phelps said not much had changed in the way of consumption, but certainly presentation.

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“People are now importing or sourcing MDMA powder or crystal, and then they’re encapsulating that themselves and then selling that off. That’s probably the main change,” he said. “I guess my primary message to all the young people that I speak to, is simply no one will force you to take a dangerous drug.

“It’ll be a choice that you make at a particular point in your life and that choice could have dramatic effects on how your life turns out.”

The 2019 Global Drug Survey, which polled more than 123,000 drug users in 35 countries, found that Australian users admitted taking MDMA almost once a month – the highest along with Portugal, Argentina, Turkey and Romania.

Sen-Sgt Phelps said he wasn’t aware of a death in Townsville from MDMA, but there had been some close calls.

“Every time some of these people are taken to hospital, if they don’t receive the treatment in a timely fashion, it’s fatal,” he said. “And you only look at the rest of the music events around the country how many people have died at those? It’s not unusual, or unheard of, we’ve just been lucky.”