DESIGNER DRUGS DEADLIER THAN BELIEVED

TALLAHASSEE - The state's drug czar says deaths from "club drugs" are 30
times worse than his office thought they were.

More people die from using designer "club drugs," popular with teenagers at
all-night raves, than state officials previously thought.

State Drug Control Policy Coordinator Jim McDonough said Friday that a
review of autopsy reports showed at least 72 people died as a result of
so-called "club drugs" in the last three years. The actual number is likely
to be even higher when the review is complete.

The drugs include the stimulant Ecstasy and the anesthetic GHB, which
accounted for most of the deaths.

"It's probably about 30 times worse than we thought it was," McDonough said
Friday before addressing a statewide summit on drug control policy. "It's
beginning to approach the heroin [death] rate."

The drugs have become popular recently in all-night parties in vogue with
teens known as raves.

State officials have been cracking down on raves and they made 1,200 arrests
in a series of raids on clubs last year. McDonough said then, that those
raids in 21 counties in September and October were in response to six
rave-related drug deaths in Florida.

But Friday, he said there apparently were many more deaths that escaped
notice.

McDonough said his office has begun reviewing all autopsy reports from
around the state for the years 1997 through 1999.

After reviewing 60 percent of them, officials have found 72 cases where one
of six designer drugs was listed as the "proximate cause of death" or the
incident that started a chain of events leading to death.

One of the designer drugs was mentioned as being present - although possibly
not the cause of death - in 214 fatalities.

By comparison, cocaine is blamed for killing 1,128 Floridians in 1998 alone.
Heroin is blamed for killing 206 people the same year

According to the autopsies, Ecstasy caused at least 27 deaths in Florida in
the three years GHQ caused 19 deaths; methamphetamine and nitrous oxide,
eight deaths each; Fentanyl, seven deaths; and Ketamine, three deaths.

"Kids think, 'Knock it off, it's all right; we're not bothering you, stop
bothering us,' " McDonough said. "But it's deadly."

GHB is known as a "date-rape drug' be cause it knocks out people and they
don't remember what happened to them. Police say it is sometimes used to
render women helpless before a sexual assault.

Emergency room workers also have noticed an increase in club drug cases but
are just now beginning to keep records on their use, said Joe Spillane, a
Nova Southeastern University pharmacy professor who also works at Broward
General Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale.

"There have been six GHB deaths in Broward County in 1997 and '98; just that
should tell you a lot of kids are using the stuff," said Spillane, who is
part of a national group that tracks drug abuse indicators.

Ecstasy and the other designer drugs have gotten the attention of drug
fighters across the country too. The number of Ecstasy tablets seized by law
enforcement went from just 196 in 1993 to more than 200,000 in the first
five months last year. ---