DRUG NO LONGER TIED TO RAVES

It's called E. Or X. Or Adam, or rolls, or the hug drug, or XTC.

Ecstasy is now also considered a main drug of choice for the under-21 crowd.

"You feel like you're Jell-O and you're part of everything around you,"
said Chrissy Strickland, 16, who came from Westminster to downtown Boulder
for a dance party Friday night. "If I roll, I just start talking to people
like I've known them for 10 years."

Ecstasy -- the illegal stimulant methylenedioxymethamphetamine, or MDMA --
was patented in Germany by pharmaceutical giant Merck in 1914.

The psychedelic therapy community rediscovered the synthetic drug in the
1960s, when psychiatrists began prescribing it as a social or marital tool
for evoking empathy and intimacy. MDMA releases the brain chemical
serotonin, elevating mood and acting as a short-term antidepressant.

Ecstasy was outlawed in the United States in 1985, and health officials say
it holds serious risks. The National Institute on Drug Abuse recently
published a bulletin saying the drug's use is increasing at an "alarming" rate.

Until recent years, the hug drug was common only among hard-core
club-goers, particularly in gay America. But ecstasy is now showing up at
run-of-the-mill keggers and — as the drug-related death of 16-year-old
Brittney Chambers has shown — even teenage birthday parties in Colorado
suburbia.

The Rave Scene

Modern ecstasy use evolved with underground raves and dance parties. It's
as integral to the rave culture as the sensory-overloading techno and
trance music, strobe lights, glow sticks and glitter.

Those who use the drug say it heightens their sensory experiences.

"It just intensifies the music so it flows through your body," said Kyla
Martin, 20, of Denver. "It makes you want to dance."

Some kids, though, say they don't go to dance parties for drugs and don't
even do drugs. It's the music and the rave culture that draws them -- the
PLUR philosophy of peace, love, unity and respect. They say the dark
venues, lasers and constant bass beats build an atmosphere for experimental
dancing, anything-goes garb and a sense of equality among poor kids, rich
kids and those who are white, black, honor students, drop-outs, jocks and
punks.

Pink-haired teenagers with piercings, dressed in baggy pants and
sweatshirts, blend in on the dance floor with T-shirt-wearing athletes and
pigtailed girls with glittered faces or angel wings, while vendors hand out
condoms and Gatorade.

"There's a lot of love at raves, and people don't judge you," said Ashley
Conrad, 16, of Westminster.

Raving in the United States dates back to the early 1980s, when Detroit
musicians experimented with synthesizers and drum machines, and then caught
on in Chicago, San Francisco and New York dance clubs.

These days, there's usually a rave on the Front Range any given weekend in
a club, theater or warehouse. Ravers pick up tickets from a spot designated
on a flyer or Web site, then go to a "map point" just before the rave to
find out the party's whereabouts. Admissions typically are all ages or 16
and older.

Gabriel Pankonin, 19, who came to Boulder from Cheyenne, Wyo., for Friday's
Pearl Street party, said techno music "is my life."

"I don't come for the drugs, although I know there are a lot of people who
do," he said. "I come for the music and the people."

Inreasingly Visible

Still a central part of the late-night raves and dance parties, ecstasy
isn't limited to that scene anymore.

"These club drugs used to be restricted to a narrow group of people, and
now they've become much more popular among the high-school and college
kids," said University of Colorado sociology professor Patti Adler, who
studies the use of drugs in society.

Brittney's Feb. 2 death has drawn the community's attention to the
mainstream use of a drug once confined to the counterculture. The teenager
slipped into a coma after taking MDMA and then drinking too much water at
her sweet 16 birthday party in Superior.

"We've always seen ecstasy, but we're seeing a lot more of it now because
there seems to be an increase in demand," said Lt. Jim Smith of the Boulder
County Drug Task Force, which uncovered a drug lab in CU student housing
last spring. "In any given week, we'll make cocaine buys, marijuana buys
and ecstasy buys -- that's real typical."

The most prevalent drug in Boulder County, Smith said, is still marijuana,
followed by cocaine. The club drugs and methamphetamine come in at about
third place, he said.

The college-town effect, Smith said, may heighten drug trafficking in the area.

"We have young people here who tend to be fairly affluent and can afford
these types of drugs," he said. "But you could also go down to Denver, and
Denver would probably have a much stronger club scene and more dealers. So
I wouldn't blame it necessarily on this being a college town."

Last year marked the second year in a row of an increase in the use of MDMA
among 10th- and 12th-graders and the first time that there was an increase
in use among eighth-graders, according to the U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services.

A University of Michigan report released in December showed that 51 percent
of high school seniors surveyed last year said it is "fairly easy" or "very
easy" to buy ecstasy, up from 22 percent in 1989.

Lisa Kamin, a senior at Boulder High, estimated 35 percent to 40 percent of
students at her school have tried the drug.

"At the beginning of the (school) year, none of my friends used X, and they
do now," said Stephan Van der Mersch, a junior.

Teens, college students, counselors and police say ecstasy is becoming
increasingly popular -- the designer drug of choice in suburbia and
metropolitan areas -- even among people who don't use other drugs or alcohol.

At $20 to $30 a pill, they say, it's often found in affluent circles: "The
designer drugs go with the designer clothes," said Megan Cain, a sophomore
at Boulder High.

They say it's clean because it doesn't require smoking, snorting, needles
or calorie consumption: "You can just take it like you take an Advil, and
people don't feel like they're being dirty drug users by taking a pill,"
said Chris Striefel, a junior at CU.

They say it's easy to hide -- unlike beer bottles or odorous marijuana. And
they say its high is euphoric -- that users feel a short-lived sense of
emotional connectedness, heightened sensation, self-acceptance, empathy and
general positivity.

A lot of young people even say it's safe.

Dangers Of Club Drugs

More than 100 ecstasy-related deaths have occurred because of heat stroke,
according to DanceSafe, a California-based nonprofit organization that
promotes safety within the rave and nightclub community and tests ecstasy
pills for purity. Stimulants combined with dancing in a hot club
environment can increase the body temperature to the point of heat stroke,
so DanceSafe tells users to stay hydrated.

There have also been rare reports of ecstasy users dying from drinking too
much water. Boulder County investigators said Friday that water
intoxication -- because of ecstasy -- caused Brittney's death.

Typically, the most dangerous aspect of the drug, police and counselors
say, is that it is synthetic and unregulated, and therefore can be tainted
with substances other than MDMA. Something altogether different, such as
paramethoxyamphetamine, or PMA, is sometimes sold as ecstasy and can be
dangerous by itself or in combination with other drugs or alcohol. PMA is
cheaper to make than ecstasy and is one of the most dangerous and toxic
hallucinogens known.

Ecstasy typically comes from the Netherlands and other parts of western Europe.

Most experts say the drug is not chemically addictive, and it's rare for
ecstasy users to overdose. When people do overdose, it's usually because
they've mixed it with other drugs, Lt. Smith said.

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, ecstasy users face risks
of psychological difficulties, including depression, sleep problems,
anxiety and paranoia, during and sometimes weeks after taking the drug.

Cisco Manzo, a Boulder artist, said he took ecstasy heavily in his 20s and
will no longer take it because it started leaving him depressed.

"I think mature people kind of grow out of it and it's just not fun to do
anymore," said Manzo, 34. "You reach a point where you feel like you're
worthless."

The Institute on Drug Abuse also warns of drug cravings and physical
symptoms -- nausea, teeth grinding, blurred vision and increases in heart
rate and blood pressure -- as well as possible long-term damage to the
parts of the brain critical to thought and memory.

"I don't think it's a safe drug at all," said Judy Taub, a social worker in
the substance abuse program at CU's Wardenburg Health Center. "It's
extremely unpredictable, and we don't know enough about it."

Ecstasy is one of a handful of popular synthetic club drugs, or "designer
drugs," that tend to fit in with the nightclub lifestyle. Along with
ecstasy, GHB and ketamine also have become more popular in the area over
the past two years, Lt. Smith said.

The Institute on Drug Abuse recently posted a nationwide bulletin saying
the popularity of club drugs is rising at an "alarming" rate and that "no
club drug is benign."

"Chronic abuse of MDMA, for example, appears to produce long-term damage to
serotonin-containing neurons in the brain," the warning said. "Given the
important role that the neurotransmitter serotonin plays in regulating
emotion, memory, sleep, pain, and higher order cognitive processes, it is
likely that MDMA use can cause a variety of behavioral and cognitive
consequences as well as impairing memory."

Shortcut to intimacy

One CU student describing her ecstasy high said "it shows you how you wish
you'd treat everyone all the time; you just love life."

Taub, of CU's health center, said ecstasy is commonly taken as an
experimental drug by those who aren't interested in other drugs or alcohol.

"I think they're curious about it, and they're getting a lot of positive
messages about it from their peers," she said. "One of the things I see
with ecstasy is people who have never used any drugs before are finding it
really appealing. That's something that has surprised me this year."

Taub said she has seen a dramatic increase in the drug's use among CU
students in the past few years. The drug, she said, seems to tap into the
desires of teens to find love and open themselves up to closer relationships.

"Ecstasy creates a false sense of intimacy," she said. "I think a lot of
what our adolescents are seeking is just that sense of figuring out how to
be intimate, and this is a quick and easy solution."

Camera staff writer Coulter Bump contributed to this report.