PANEL CLEARS BILL TO INCREASE PENALTIES FOR DEALING ECSTASY

Following tearful testimony from a mother whose daughter died after taking
the designer drug "ecstasy," an Illinois House committee Friday decided to
recommend legislation to boost the penalties for dealing the drug.

The bill also decreases the threshold that allows prosecutors to charge
people with a drug-induced homicide.

House Bill 126 would elevate the criminal penalties for possessing and
dealing MDMA, the active ingredient in ecstasy, up to the same level as
cocaine, heroin and LSD, according to House Minority Leader Lee Daniels,
the bill's sponsor.

Daniels, R-Elmhurst, said that while persons can be charged with a Class X
felony for intent to distribute cocaine, heroin or LSD when they have
relatively small amounts of those drugs, a dealer in possession of up to
900 doses of ecstasy can receive probation for a first offense.

Daniels attributed a rising use of euphoria-inducing ecstasy to the lower
criminal penalties for its distribution, which he says makes people more
willing to deal the drug.

Under the bill, a person convicted of possession of 15 to 200 doses of
ecstasy with intent to distribute would face a Class X felony and anywhere
from six to 30 years in prison.

Also included in the legislation is a technical change to the criminal code
that broadens the ability of prosecutors to charge people with drug-induced
homicide, also a Class X felony.

DuPage County State's Attorney Joe Birkett said the new rules would give
the drug-induced homicide law some teeth.

The current law has been on the books for nine years, Birkett said, and it
has only been used to prosecute one case.

The proposed legislation would allow state's attorneys to prosecute anyone
who delivered to a person a drug that resulted in his or her death,
regardless of the quantity.

As an example of the problem, Birkett said that to prosecute someone for
drug-induced homicide for selling a fatal dose of ecstasy, that person
would have had to sell 900 hits. Under the proposed law, it would only
require selling one.

"I am sick and tired of looking into the face of parents and telling them
nothing else can be done," he said.

Seated next to Birkett at Friday's committee meeting was Kate Patten from
Rolling Meadows, whose daughter Kelley died more than a year ago after
taking ecstasy at a concert in New Jersey. Kelley's boyfriend also died
after taking the drug.

Just before the panel voted to recommend the legislation without a
dissenting vote, Daniels announced he would like to name the legislation
"Kelley's Law."