DON'T EXAGGERATE DANGER

Re: "Ecstasy allure grows despite health risks," Feb. 26.

Dr. H. Westley Clark, director for the federal Center for Substance
Abuse Treatment, says "Using ecstasy is like playing Russian roulette
... It may be that only two out of 100 people are going to die, but
is ecstasy so important to you that you want to be one of those two?"
But it certainly is not true that 2 out of 100 people who take
ecstasy die from it. Dr. Clark himself said 27 deaths have been tied
to ecstasy from 1994 through 1998. If 2 percent is the death rate,
that would mean that only 1,350 people took the drug from 1994
through 1998. Obviously the number of people taking the drug during
that time was far greater, meaning the 2 percent death rate mentioned
by Dr. Clark is a ridiculously exaggerated figure. The article stated
U.S. Customs Service alone confiscated 400,000 doses of ecstasy
entering the country in fiscal 1997. Customs estimates a 10 percent
rate of confiscation for illegal drugs entering the country, but even
assuming they and other law enforcement got 50 percent of the drugs,
at least 400,000 doses of ecstasy got through and were presumably
consumed. Even if all 27 of the people who died during the '94-'98
period had died in that year, the death rate would have been less
than .007 percent, not 2 percent.

Any deaths due to drugs are tragic. However, it is highly
counterproductive to use inflated estimates. Teenagers are likely to
ignore advice from adults if they know it is not entirely accurate.
Even accurate advice about the risks of drug abuse might then be
viewed with suspicion.

PHIN MacDonald, Medford, Mass.