ATTACKING 'ECSTASY'

A new White House drug policy study confirms what the Trib has been
reporting for months: Use of the drug ecstasy has expanded beyond the
club scene and rave parties. It's being sold at high schools and
colleges, on street corners and, in some cities, in coffee shops.

Regionally, Pittsburgh is one of the major distribution points for the
dangerous hallucinogenic drug, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration. Several major investigations by narcotics agents are
under way in Allegheny County that have connections to Westmoreland
County.

Says Andy Petyak, a DEA agent in Pittsburgh, "It's knocking out cocaine
as the drug of choice."

That's because traditional dealers of cocaine and marijuana are shifting
to ecstasy. It's cheap to produce, profitable to sell, and the penalties
for dealing haven't been as severe as for selling heroin or cocaine.

But that, we're glad to see, has changed.

The U.S. Sentencing Commission has beefed up guideline penalties for
selling ecstasy, more than tripling the potential jail time to more than
six years for people convicted of selling 800 pills. The sentence
guideline used to be 15 months to 21 months.

Tougher sentencing is but one step in what must become a multiprong
campaign of enforcement and education, particularly at colleges and high
schools. Surveys have found that teen-agers do listen when presented
with the facts about drug use.

We've witnessed the ravages, the costs and the societal burdens from the
crack craze of the 1990s. We don't need more of the same from this
latest drug of choice.