OFFICIALS - FLORIDA LEADS NATION IN ECSTASY TRAFFICKING

ORLANDO -- Florida leads the nation in Ecstasy-trafficking arrests, with
much of the party drug passing through central Florida in recent years,
investigators said.

This chemical known as 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine, or MDMA, comes
mostly from illegal laboratories in Belgium and the Netherlands. The
designer drug, also known as XTC or X, unleashes the energy of a stimulant
with hallucinogenic euphoria that lasts four hours and longer.

Interpol and U.S. law-enforcement officials say the drug labs flourish
around Antwerp and Amsterdam partly because of easy access to needed
chemicals and northern Europe's open borders. The region produces more than
80 percent of the world supply of Ecstasy.

Since 1998, Florida has had more Ecstasy-trafficking arrests than any other
state with 1,113 arrests, followed by California with 579, according to
federal Drug Enforcement Administration records.

Florida also reigns as one of the top three U.S. smuggling routes because
it has numerous international flights with connections across the country,
customs inspectors say. The other two are New York and California.

"The tourist industry of Orlando . . . Miami's South Beach . . . and the
annual pilgrimage of spring breakers from other states offer an attractive
venue for Ecstasy trafficking," John Varrone, the acting deputy assistant
commissioner for customs, told Congress in 2000.

The local market no longer is defined by 20-something, non-Hispanic white
ravers in downtown Orlando. Ecstasy turns up among young black men selling
crack cocaine and marijuana on the streets, preppie kids from suburban high
schools and users as old as 40, drug agents said.

"It's spread beyond younger communities like Orlando through every race and
socio-economic class to small-town USA.," said Steve Collins, head of DEA
activities in Central Florida. "It's available everywhere."

The Office of National Drug Control Policy and numerous public agencies
warn that Ecstasy can cause heart damage, kidney failure and fatal surges
in body temperature. The National Institute of Mental Health reports that
the drug damages communication between nerve cells in the brain.

The first time local law enforcement encountered Ecstasy was in early 1990,
when Winter Park police seized 2,000 pills of what was billed as a
psychedelic love drug.

In the past year, enough Ecstasy pills have been seized in the Orlando area
for each of the city's 187,000 residents to have one, police records show.

In Central Florida, deaths from Ecstasy began infrequently in 1994 when two
teens and a 20-year-old woman died in downtown Orlando nightclubs. Others
followed at raves, all-night dance parties featuring hypnotic mixtures of
lighting and loud music. In 2000, two people died on the same night at an
Orange County nightclub after they bought what they thought was Ecstasy,
but turned out to be a chemical that poached the victims' brains with body
temperatures of 108 degrees.