ECSTASY DRUG IS A TIME BOMB

Time Bomb Or Harmless Diversion? In The Case Of Ecstasy, We Say Time Bomb.

First, is the subject relevant? Yes. Is Ecstasy found in every parish in
Southwest Louisiana? Yes. Every town and city? Yes. Every school? Yes, if
that school has eighth through 12th grades.

What is this stuff? It's Methyylenedioxymethamphetamine, belonging to the
family of entactogens. The shorter name is MDMA. Taken in a pill which
costs from $7 to $50, according to where you buy it, MDMA produces
heightened feelings of warmth and self-acceptance that last 3 to 5 hours.

Who uses it? A survey by the University of Michigan indicates that 1.3
million students in the eighth through 12th grades in America have tried
ecstasy at least once, and 450,000 students in these grades currently use
it regularly,

Is it good or bad? Letis take ecstasy advocates first. The ''harmless
diversion'' advocates point out that in the 1970s, marriage counselors were
prescribing Ecstasy because of its touted ability to bring out a warm and
fuzzy feeling for couples. It became known as the ''hug drug'' for that
reason. They also say ecstasy is not only risk-free but the federal Drug
Enforcement Administration is using a current ecstasy crackdown as a public
relations stunt to wring more money out of Congress.

Now for the other side. The problem is that nobody knows — yet — the extent
of the health risks. But there are risks. In 1994 there were 250 hospital
emergency room visits by ecstasy users nationwide. By 1999, that number had
jumped to 2,850. Those emergency room visits for severe nausea, lapse of
consciousness or other severe reactions.

But those brief hospital visits aren't the worst problem. The time-bomb
effect is where the danger lies. Users suffer depression, insomnia and
memory loss for days after a binge. The reason: ecstasy drains the brain
chemical serotonin. It has been proved that ecstasy actually damages
neurons in the brains of monkeys and rodents, and a brain imaging study
indicates that humans could suffer the same effects.

What we've got at this point is a risky situation in which the ''harmless
diversion'' advocates can claim that there is no hard medical evidence to
prove that ecstasy is a dangerous drug. Until there is, they say, ecstasy
remains simply a hug-drug that induces nothing more than a warm, fuzzy
feeling whose worst result could be the obvious one — people lose some of
their inhibitions.

We choose to take the position that risking brain damage is too high a
price to pay for a temporary warm and fuzzy feeling. And harmless
diversions don't leave you with depression and a loss of memory.

For those reasons, we'll continue to label ecstasy as a time bomb.