DOCTORS SHOULD TALK ABOUT ECSTASY

A week ago today, a bill was signed into law in Illinois that put the drug
ecstasy in the same league as heroin and cocaine when it comes to selling it.

Beginning Jan. 1, anyone convicted of possessing as few as 15 ecstasy pills
with the intent of selling them would face a six-to 30-year prison term.

It's one of the toughest ecstasy laws in the country.

A bill, just about as tough, was proposed in the Iowa Legislature, but it
never passed.

In the Illinois Quad-Cities, Moline and East Moline police told us they've
never run across ecstasy. But the drug did make a major Quad-City debut in
1997, when it sent four Quad-Citians to the emergency room, almost killing
three of them.

The three stopped breathing after taking ecstasy and had to be put on
mechanical respirators to save their lives.

One of the ecstasy-takers came into the emergency room at Genesis Medical
Center in a coma and was having seizures so badly that doctors had to
medically paralyze him.

Before those four cases, Quad-City emergency room doctors treated at least
two women who were raped after unwittingly being given ecstasy.

These pills, that sell for $20 to $30 each, are bad stuff.

And while this new stringent-as-heck Illinois ecstasy law addresses the
sale of ecstasy, that is an after-the-fact answer.

It means that the drug has to be manufactured, then sold to people -- who
obviously buy it so they can take the drug.

But the medical community wants to get involved in the issue at the front end.

Dr. Michael Miller of the American Society of Addiction Medicine told
American Medical News that doctors throughout the nation must be aware that
a growing number of their young patients are taking club drugs like
ecstasy. They're called club drugs because they are popular at all-night
dance parties, also called raves, that are attended by young people.

The primary users of ecstasy are between the ages of 12 and 27. Dr. Miller
says we can expect to see ecstasy "in every corner of the nation and in
every size community."

And the drug-selling liars of the world are pitching the notion that
ecstasy holds therapeutic powers for treating mental ills and that it is a
safe, non-addictive drug. Miller said such claims are reminiscent of the
same ones made in the '60s about LSD.

What ecstasy can do is make body temperature soar, cause seizures and even
death. It can even cause lasting changes in the brain's chemical systems
that control mood and memory.

Dr. Miller's right to advise doctors to talk with parents and their young
patients about this drug. I'd be ecstatic if that were to happen with our
Quad-City physicians.