ANOTHER sunny day in Sydney. While office workers go about their daily routines, the mean streets downtown just keep getting meaner.

Three men were being interviewed at the Sydney Police Centre last night following the seizure of tablets believed to be ecstasy. Police estimated their value at about $27,000.

The three men were arrested mid-afternoon near Central Station.

The arrests followed a three-month joint operation by police from the Kings Cross and Surry Hills local area commands.

With ecstasy, or MDMA, remaining as popular as ever within Sydney’s nightclub scene, there have been a number of major busts this year.

Last month, the Australian Federal Police and the NSW State Crime Command Drug Squad seized about 50kg of ecstasy, with an estimated street value of $12 million.

A man and a woman, both aged 60, were arrested.

In July, AFP and NSW police arrested four people following a search of a vehicle in the city.

Police say about 12,000 tablets with a value of $600,000 were recovered in that operation. They also seized $82,500 in cash.

In September, another large quantity of ecstasy was seized in western Sydney and four men arrested.

It was alleged that a large number of tablets were thrown from a vehicle that the police were pursuing. A pill press allegedly used in the production of ecstasy was seized.

In recent months, there has been renewed controversy over whether or not ecstasy is harmful.

Writing in the magazine The Psychologist, a group of researchers claimed that the drug might not be dangerous and that people were being misled about ecstasy.

But research from the John Hopkins School of Medicine in the US released subsequently showed that monkeys given multiple doses of the drug suffered brain damage and impairment to their ability to control movement, experience emotions and experience pleasure or pain.

Experts also have warned against the practice of combining ecstasy with Viagra, some drug dealers marketing the two drugs in “party packages” or as “sextasy”.