SENATE HEARS DETAILS OF ECSTASY FROM KIDS

WASHINGTON - Philip McCarthy just wanted to have as much fun as the
other kids when he took Ecstasy for the first time at a house party
in a New York City suburb. Soon the 17-year-old was hooked and
stealing television sets and VCRs to support a $300-a-week drug habit.

When he was on Ecstasy, "I felt like the world was glowing with love
and my body felt unreal," McCarthy, of Central Islip, N.Y., told the
Senate Government Affairs Committee, led by Sen. Joseph Lieberman,
D-Conn., Monday at a hearing on Ecstasy's quick growth.

"It was a high I definitely wanted again," said McCarthy, who is in
drug treatment.

Ecstasy, known scientifically as methylenedioxymethamphetamine, or
MDMA, is a synthetic, psychoactive pill that typically induces
feelings of euphoria and dramatically raises blood pressure, heart
rate and body temperature. It gained popularity in the 1990s at
all-night dance parties known as raves.

"While users of club drugs often take them simply for energy to keep
on dancing or partying, research shows these drugs can have
long-lasting negative effects on the brain that can alter memory and
other behaviors," said Alan Leshner, director of the National
Institute on Drug Abuse.

He said more public education about the drug's dangers, including
heart, kidney and brain damage, is essential to combating its use.

McCarthy and fellow Phoenix House drug treatment program participant
Dayna Moore, 16, said they knew nothing of the anger and depression
that would hit after Ecstasy's high wore off. That quickly led them
into cycles of addiction as they took more and more Ecstasy, which
sells for $20 to $40 per pill.

"It was a depression that I couldn't stand," said Moore, of Ridge, N.Y.

Seizures of Ecstasy by the Customs Service grew from about 400,000
tablets in 1997, to 3.5 million tablets in 1999, to more than 9
million tablets in 2000. The drug is manufactured mostly in Belgium
and The Netherlands.

"No matter how successful our enforcement efforts, our best defense
is less demand," said John Varrone, assistant commissioner in
Customs' office of investigations.

The White House's drug policy office began a $5 million radio and
Internet campaign in August aimed at educating youths and adults
about Ecstasy's dangers, said Donald Vereen, the office's deputy
director.

MDMA "is a public health problem that is behaving like an epidemic,"
Vereen said, citing hospital data showing the number of Ecstasy
references in emergency room episodes grew from 250 in 1994 to 4,511
in 2000.

Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., and Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, have
sponsored legislation that would require more public education about
Ecstasy and provide funding to state and local law enforcement and to
the National Institutes of Health for research on the drug's health
effects. In the House, a similar bill by Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., has
bipartisan support.