Victorian police are warning the party drug ecstasy is back, after it nearly vanished from city streets for several years.
Police say seizures of the drug rose to four kilograms, or 16,000 tablets, by the end of the last financial year compared to only 340 grams in 2010, News Corp reports.
Victoria Police Chemical Drug Intelligence Unit leader Joanne Gerstner-Stevens says the figures mean ecstasy is "well and truly back".
She says the shortage was caused by a precursor called safrole that couldn't be sourced by drug traffickers.
"In the first half of 2012 we saw those numbers increasing and there was intelligence coming from around the world telling us there was a precursor to the precursor that was emerging, and so ecstasy was being made again," she told News Corp.
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The rise of synthetic drugs and crystal meth or ice had filled much of the drug market since ecstasy disappeared, she said.
