LAWMAKERS TRY TO CURB SPREAD OF ECSTASY USE

WASHINGTON US lawmakers grasped for clues yesterday on how to slow the
epidemic spread of the "club drug", Ecstasy.

Over the past three years, the illegal import and use of Ecstasy has
increased by more than 400 per cent, according to the US Customs Service.

Donald Vereen, deputy director of the Office of National Drug Control
Policy, told the Senate committee on government affairs: "Taking cues from
past epidemics, including drug epidemics, many researchers view a
four-phase cycle: incubation, expansion, plateau, decline." He added: "(The
drug) is now in the expansion phase."

Ecstasy - also called MDMA, Love Drug, Hug Drug or E - comes in tablet
form, and looks more like multi-coloured candy than a drug. It is often
stamped with shapes such as hearts and horses or words such as love.

The pills are produced primarily in clandestine laboratories in western
Europe, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.

They are carried to the US via express mail services and couriers aboard
commercial airline flights, and through air freight shipments from several
European cities.

John Varrone, assistant commissioner of the US Customs office of
investigations, told the panel that the pills, which cost only pennies to
make in Europe, cost $20 - $50 (14 - 35 Pounds) in the US.

Senator Joseph Lieberman, chairman of the governmental affairs committee,
saved some of his most probing questions for two recovering Ecstasy addicts
who were both under the age of 18.

Both said they had tried the drug for the first time with their friends,
not at clubs or "rave" parties, the scenes typically pinpointed as hot
spots for the distribution and use of Ecstasy.

Both described symptoms of addiction, even though many have the perception
that it is not as addictive as other drugs such as cocaine and heroin.

Philip McCarthy, 17, said his $300 a week Ecstasy habit drove him to loot
houses for anything of value.

"It may not be physically addicting," he said. "But I can tell you I was
scared to death of breaking into houses. Yet I wanted to get high so badly,
I was willing to risk it."

Mr Lieberman called the statistics and the stories that the teenagers told
"frightening".

"Because this drug is beginning to do serious damage to young people in our
country, we have an obligation to educate and warn them and their parents
of its danger and an obligation to co-ordinate federal, state and local law
enforcement agencies against Ecstasy."