ECSTASY'S LOST 'ITS PANACHE' AMONG TEENS

Ecstasy was the "it" drug among certain teens and young adults for a
few years beginning in the late 1990s: a feel-good, dance-all-night
stimulant that was a driving force behind rave parties that featured
pulsating, melody-free music.

But after peaking in popularity in 2001, Ecstasy isn't so cool
anymore.

Tighter airport security since the 9/11 attacks has pinched the flow
of the drug into the USA from chief suppliers in the Netherlands and
Belgium, making it less available and more expensive.

Meanwhile, federally funded anti-drug campaigns have produced poignant
TV spots warning that Ecstasy users risk brain damage or death.

Teens and young adults have taken note. Last year, 57.7% of high
school seniors said they believed that taking Ecstasy just once or
twice could harm them, up from 33.8% in 1997, according to an annual
survey of teen drug use by the University of Michigan.

Mike, a 24-year-old musician from Long Island, N.Y., who didn't want
his last name published because he is in drug treatment at Phoenix
House in Ronkonkoma, N.Y., says he used to go to raves where Ecstasy
was popular. But he says he stopped two years ago, after seeing
"younger and younger" ravers get so high that "they would get
incapacitated and lie there like dust."

Ecstasy is "just not new anymore," says Mark Brandl, executive
director of DanceSafe Org, a New York-based group that works to
prevent drug abuse among recreational users at nightclubs and raves.
"It's lost its . . . freshness, its panache."

Moving on to Other Drugs

The bad news, says Lloyd Johnston, chief investigator for the Michigan
study, is that some teens appear to have moved on to drugs that are
less expensive, more available and potentially just as dangerous.

The use of highly addictive prescription painkillers such as OxyContin
and Vicodin has jumped since 2000, and both drugs have become more
popular than Ecstasy among high school seniors, the Michigan study
reported last year.

More than 9% of high school seniors said they had used Vicodin during
the previous year, the study said, a level of popularity that roughly
matched that of Ecstasy when it was at its peak four years ago. About
5% of seniors said they had used OxyContin in the previous year,
compared with 4% who said they had taken Ecstasy.

When drug researchers at Michigan first started tracking OxyContin and
Vicodin abuse among teens in 2002, many users tended to steal small
doses from their parents' medicine cabinets. "Trail mixing" parties --
where teens would mix pills in bowls and then hand them out randomly
- -- gained popularity, according to the Community Epidemiology Working
Group, researchers who report drug-use trends to the National
Institute on Drug Abuse.

Teens also have gotten prescription narcotics from Internet pharmacies
that sell such drugs illegally. This week, agents with the Drug
Enforcement Administration (DEA) and other agencies broke up an
alleged drug ring that is accused of illegally selling more than 2.5
million pills a month via the Internet.

Some Internet pharmacies allow any teen with a credit card to order
narcotics without a prescription. Even after a big markup by sellers,
the drugs often are cheaper than Ecstasy. The price for Ecstasy
varies; in some cities it can cost as much as $30 a pill, the DEA says.

Safer Than Street Drugs

Teens also perceive prescription drugs as safer than street drugs such
as heroin and cocaine, Johnston says, adding that many teens don't
appear to recognize the risks of abusing prescription drugs, or to
understand that OxyContin is in the same drug family as heroin.

"The increases (in prescription drug abuse) aren't dramatic, but I
find the absolute levels -- one in every 20 (seniors having tried
OxyContin) -- disturbing," Johnston says. "If I told you that 5% were
using heroin, I think you'd go screaming into the night."

(Nearly 1% of high school seniors said last year that they had used
heroin in the previous year, the Michigan study said.)

Opening Door for Inhalants

Ecstasy's demise also appears to have cleared the way for a rise in
teens' use of inhalants.

They were a problem a decade ago, before public health campaigns that
warned of the damage they could cause to a person's brain and nervous
system helped to dramatically lower usage among teens.

Now, a new generation of teens unfamiliar with those dangers is
experimenting with inhalants, Johnston says.

Overall, the percentage of seniors who said they had used any illegal
drug in the previous year dropped from 41.4% in 2001 to 38.8% in 2004,
the Michigan study said.

Marijuana remains the most widely used illicit drug; last year 34.3%
of high school seniors said they had used it in the previous year.

Ecstasy is difficult to make here because the U.S. government monitors
the necessary chemicals and it licenses pill-pressing machines. Canada
and the Netherlands do not license pill-pressers, and such chemicals
are more available in the Netherlands.

Before 9/11, Ecstasy smugglers from Europe faced little scrutiny at
U.S. airports. They could move thousands of pills at once in suitcases
or strapping packets to their bodies.

"It was coming right from Europe into (John F. Kennedy International
Airport in New York) in every way possible," says Dean Boyd, spokesman
for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In fiscal 2002, customs and border agents seized a record 4,633 pounds
of Ecstasy pills, up about 12.4% from the previous year. That changed
in 2003, when Ecstasy smugglers began to avoid airports. The amount
seized that year dropped by more than 77%.

At the same time, Ecstasy's presence in the USA declined, suggesting
that some drug rings scaled back their operations or simply gave up
trying to send Ecstasy here.

Meanwhile, investigators' pursuits of Ecstasy distributors are
beginning to pay off. U.S. and Canadian agents last year busted a
smuggling ring that allegedly accounted for about 15% of the Ecstasy
in the USA.

A DEA analysis later found that the average price of an Ecstasy pill
jumped in several cities. In New Orleans, undercover DEA agents paid
an average of $17.50 a pill, up from $10.50.