Ecstasy Produced for 'riot Control' in South Africa

Ecstasy Produced for 'Riot Control' in South Africa

According to Reuters, on June 9 1998 a fomer South African government scientist told South Africa's Truth Commission that in the final days of apartheid the government ordered its chemists to make one tonne of ecstasy, for 'riot control'.

The scientist, Dr Johan Koekemoer, former head of chemical and biological weapons research at the secret Delta G facility, told the commission that he did not approve of the project and did not trust the motives of those who asked him to make the ecstasy, saying "I did not believe ecstasy was a good incapacitant and I told my superiors that...ecstasy enhances interpersonal relationships. I told Dr Mijburgh [overall chief of Delta G] I did not want to kiss my enemy". He personally delivered the ecstasy, in powder form, to Mijburgh between February 1992 and January 1993.

More details on the case from a correspondent in South Africa:

"At the moment, there is an ongoing commission of inquiry being held into the activities of the secret service during the apartheid years. The last few days of the inquiry have lifted the lid on the activities of a clandestine government laboratory called the Roodeplaat Research Laboratory. Evidence presented by former lab employees at the commission of inquiry this week, reveal that the laboratory produced all sorts of exotic poisons for use against anti-apartheid activists. These included cyanide, thallium, botulism