Violence Escalates As Club-drug Use Spreads

LOS ANGELES - It was finding an Israeli drug dealer dead in a car trunk at
Los Angeles International Airport 18 months ago that gave authorities here
the first hint that the club drug Ecstasy was becoming a serious problem.
He had been killed by two hit men from Israel, said officials of the Drug
Enforcement Administration (DEA).

Then there was the shipment of 2.1 million Ecstasy pills, worth as much as
$40 million, that the U.S. Customs Service seized at the airport in July.
The authorities say it was the world's largest Ecstasy bust.

And now law-enforcement officials say they have seen another worrisome
development. At a number of large all-night dance parties called raves,
which draw thousands of young people to the desert east of Los Angeles,
rival gangs have fought over the sale of Ecstasy. At one rave in March, 102
people were arrested on charges of selling Ecstasy, assault or resisting
arrest, according to the DEA.

What is happening in Los Angeles mirrors what is occurring across much of
the nation, law-enforcement officials and drug experts say. Not only is the
use of Ecstasy exploding, more than doubling among 12th graders in the last
two years, but it is also spreading well beyond its origin as a party drug
for affluent white suburban teenagers to virtually every ethnic and class
group, and from big cities like New York and Los Angeles to rural Vermont
and South Dakota.

At the same time, the huge profits to be made - a tablet that costs 50
cents to manufacture in underground labs in the Netherlands can be sold for
$25 in the United States - have set off increasingly violent turf wars
among Ecstasy dealers.

"With drugs, it's always about the money," said Bridget Brennan, the
special narcotics prosecutor for New York City. "And the dealers are
starting to see there is so much money in Ecstasy that more people are
getting involved, and with that comes more violence."

Homicides linked to Ecstasy dealing have occurred in recent months in
Norfolk, Va.; in Elgin, Ill., outside Chicago, and in Valley Stream, N.Y.,
outside New York City, police records show.

This spring, in Bristow, Va., a suburb of Washington, D.C., college student
Daniel Robert Petrole Jr., 21, was shot 10 times in the head as he sat in
his car. According to court records, local police believed Petrole was
responsible for distributing more than $1.5 million in Ecstasy and
marijuana in Prince William County. Two young dealers who worked with
Petrole have been charged with killing him.

In New York City last month, Salvatore Gravano, the former Gambino
crime-family hit man, pleaded guilty to running a multimillion-dollar
Ecstasy ring in Arizona, where he was living under the federal
witness-protection program. Court documents showed that Gravano was accused
of hatching four homicide plots to consolidate his control of the Arizona
drug market.

Most Ecstasy is produced in the Netherlands or Belgium and smuggled into
the U.S. by Israeli or Russian organized gangs. Some Dominican Republic
groups have also become involved, selling Ecstasy along with heroin and
cocaine from drug houses in Manhattan to buyers who come from as far away
as Virginia, officials say.

Because it is sold as pills, Ecstasy is easier to smuggle than heroin,
cocaine or marijuana, authorities say. Large shipments flown into New York,
Los Angeles or Miami are broken down and sent out by overnight-delivery
services, like Federal Express, to midlevel dealers in other cities.

Brennan said Ecstasy was also widely available on the Internet. Last year,
her office arrested a man who had been selling Ecstasy on a site called
House of Beans.

Seizures of Ecstasy by the Customs Service have jumped sharply, to 9.3
million pills in 2000, up from only 400,000 pills in 1997, said Charles
Winwood, the acting commissioner of the Customs Service.

The law-enforcement officials and drug experts do not suggest Ecstasy will
lead to the same levels of violence or social turmoil as crack cocaine did
in the late 1980s, when thousands of teenage dealers armed themselves with
handguns and many mothers neglected their children.

For one thing, Ecstasy does not cause the same dangerous changes in mood
and judgment as crack does. For another, crack gave only a brief high,
driving addicts back to the street repeatedly in search of another dose and
often leading them to rob or steal to support their habit.

Ecstasy instead induces a high of up to six hours, enhancing feelings of
empathy and closeness, its users say.

But interviews with drug experts and teenage Ecstasy addicts in treatment
programs here show that the drug, known scientifically as MDMA, both a
stimulant and a hallucinogen, can be disruptive and expose them to violence.

"We are dancing with danger here, because the kids and their parents think
of Ecstasy as a benign party drug," said Michele Leonhart, the special
agent in charge of the DEA's Los Angeles office. "They don't see ... that
people die from overdoses and that some of the dances in the desert are no
longer just dances, they're like violent crack houses set to music."