ECSTASY TAKES TOLL ON TEENS NATIONWIDE

CHICAGO -- One dead after a party in suburban Chicago. Two more in Memphis,
Tenn., and another two in Portland, Ore.

The fatal consequences of Ecstasy -- an illegal drug that some say is this
decade's version of LSD -- are becoming increasingly apparent nationwide,
further stirring the debate about how to deal with the large numbers of
young people who are using it.

"It's the hottest drug going right now," says Michelle, a 19-year-old
former Ecstasy user from New York City who is now in rehab and spoke on the
condition that her last name not be used. "Anybody can get it anywhere,
anytime."

While it is most often associated with the dance parties -- or "raves" --
federal officials say the drug also known as MDMA is so readily available
that teens can buy it at school and on the street corner.

A survey of American teens released in February found that one in four
questioned said they had a friend or classmate who had used Ecstasy, while
17 percent said they knew more than one user. It was the first time the
nonprofit National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse conducted a
survey on the drug.

In recent months, Dr. Vasilios Pitsios says he has treated patients as
young as 14 who have arrived unconscious at the emergency room at Saint
Vincent Hospital, in the heart of Manhattan's club scene. He says many have
traveled to town from New Jersey and Long Island. And two have died on his
watch.

Pitsios says he has a frank talk with those who survive. "But how much of
that sticks?" he asks. "It's probably very little."

Some young people are taking matters into their own hands, preaching "harm
reduction" methods that they hope can save lives. Rather than telling
others to just say no, they believe it is more realistic to give users
information about Ecstasy that, they say, can lessen the drug's damage.

"It's obvious that zero tolerance simply doesn't work," says Andrew
Epstein, a senior at Amherst College in Massachusetts who helped organize
an information session about Ecstasy on his campus this week

Tips On Use

Among the tips he and others are spreading to young people nationwide: Stay
hydrated to avoid severe, and sometimes deadly, overheating.

They also tell users to avoid "stacking," or taking more than one tablet in
a night to enhance the drug's euphoric "I-love-everyone" effect.

Epstein says he first tried Ecstasy when he was a 17 but has cut back from
nearly monthly use to two or three times a year.

Steve Svoboda, a 24-year-old Web site designer from Chicago, says he has
done the same.

"If it's used sparingly and people know the risks, I believe the potential
for harm is greatly reduced," says Svoboda, who heads Chicago's chapter of
a California-based harm-reduction group called DanceSafe.

Tablet Testing

Among other things, the group offers to test Ecstasy tablets for other
drugs that police and health officials say are increasingly being passed
off as Ecstasy. In February, for example, police in Fairfax County, Va.,
confiscated hundreds of Ecstasy pills laced with the drug PCP.

"When somebody tells me they've taken Ecstasy these days, I have no idea
what they've taken," says Dr. Charles Grob, director of child and
adolescent psychiatry at the Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Torrance, Calif.

Grob, who conducted the first Food and Drug Administration-approved study
of MDMA's effects in mid-1990s, says the furor over the drug has
overshadowed its potential as a psychiatric treatment for such ailments as
post-traumatic stress disorder.

Michelle, the New York City teen, started using Ecstasy at 17 and developed
a four-day-a-week habit. About a month ago, she checked into a rehab center
in Millbrook, N.Y.

"You wake up in the morning with dark circles under your eyes. You're pale.
And you feel down -- like you can't do it anymore without Ecstasy," she
says. "It's not worth it at all."