CITY LAW TARGETING RAVES TAKES BIG STEP

Landlords Would Face Jail If They Rented Drug Site

An ordinance that would make it a crime for Chicago landlords to knowingly
rent out buildings for rave parties where illegal drugs are used was
approved Wednesday by the City Council's Committee on Police and Fire.

Officials said the law, which carries a jail sentence of up to 6 months, is
a cautious first step in the battle against Ecstasy and other designer
drugs, which are gaining popularity and were linked to three deaths in the
Chicago area last year.

"This will put some people on notice that when you rent your place out,
you've got to know what it's going to be used for," Ald. William Beavers
(7th), the panel's chairman, said after the unanimous vote.

He added that designer drugs pose peculiar challenges to police. "These
types of drugs are tough to spot. They look like legitimate medication.
Anybody can put them in a prescription pill bottle, and everything looks on
the up and up."

The measure, introduced by Mayor Richard Daley in March, will move to the
full City Council for a final vote May 2.

At about $25 a dose, Ecstasy is cheaper than cocaine or heroin, and its use
is growing at a rate that harks back to the beginning of the cocaine craze
in the 1970s, according to Dr. Timothy Erickson, who testified at
Wednesday's hearing.

"The Ecstasy epidemic has hit Chicago," said Erickson, an emergency
medicine toxicologist at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "It started
off as a party drug, much as cocaine did. Of course, we all saw the wrath
of cocaine in the '80s and '90s. And because the long-term effects are
unknown, it's being used with the same abandon. These kids think if one
[dose] is good, six must be better."

Scientists say Ecstasy increases the levels of pleasure-producing chemicals
in the brain but also can cause dehydration, high blood pressure,
convulsions and strokes.

A 17-year-old McHenry boy, an 18-year-old Naperville woman and a
20-year-old Lisle man were killed by overdoses of an Ecstasy look-alike
drug in 2000, authorities have said.