CLUB DRUGS A POTENTIAL PLAGUE, OFFICIALS SAY

Anthony Placido, the special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement
Administration's New York division, has previously worked in places like
Mexico City, trying to stem the flow of cocaine into the United States.

He recounted yesterday that, over an 18-month period, agents in Mexico
seized 150 metric tons of the drug that were headed for the streets of
American cities.

But as a father of a pre-teen and a teenage daughter, he said, cocaine
isn't the drug that keeps him awake at night. It's Ecstasy and other
so-called club drugs.

"Ecstasy and these other predatory club drugs scare the hell out of me," he
said yesterday.

Placido spoke at a seminar organized by the DEA at Pace University's
Pleasantville campus to educate law-enforcement officials, teachers, social
workers, substance-abuse counselors and parents about what he called the
coming plague of mind-altering drugs. About 130 people attended the nearly
four-hour presentation.

Placido said the drugs -- like Ecstasy, Ketamine and GHB -- eventually
could rival the crack-cocaine plague that exploded across the country in
the early 1980s and took hold in every major city in the nation.

Unlike crack, which carries a social stigma, especially for middle class
and upper-middle class teens, dealers market Ecstasy to teens by touting it
as a safe, non-addictive high that induces feelings of euphoria, he said.

Dealers target youths as young as 12, Special Agent Robert Marchi said,
emblazoning the pills -- most of which are manufactured in Dutch drug labs
- -- with the Harry Potter logo or the Playboy bunny.

In fact, Marchi said, the drugs can cause everything from permanent brain
damage to death.

While the drugs do give many users a feeling of uncontrolled joy, they also
are used to facilitate sexual assaults. Drugs are used in up to 20 percent
of all rapes, he said.

Pedophiles have been known to troll the underage clubs that throw raves --
dance parties fueled by throbbing techno music and lights -- armed with
GHB, gamma hydroxybutric acid, or rohypnol, Marchi said.

The drugs can cause users to pass out for hours and then wake up with amnesia.

Westchester County Assistant District Attorney Thomas Luzio, chief of the
D.A.'s narcotics bureau, said that, before 1998, there had been no criminal
cases in the county involving Ecstasy.

Since 1998, cops have made more than 200 arrests involving the drug. In
January, county police arrested two men in Yonkers after undercover cops
said they bought 25,000 Ecstasy pills from them.

Law enforcement, Placido said, had been slow to recognize the problem the
club drugs have become.

That, however, has changed, at least on the federal level. Placido said his
office's top priority is targeting Colombian heroin, followed by cocaine.

Ecstasy and the other club drugs have now risen to number three on the list.