TEENS USING MORE CLUB DRUGS

MEDFORD -- When she was a teen-ager, 23-year-old Kitty said she had to
travel to Portland to find popular club drugs such as ecstasy.

Kitty, a restaurant manager in Medford, said she now finds the drugs
regularly at parties in Medford.

"About three years ago, there wasn't much to be found in the valley," she
said. "You had to go import it. You would go to a party in Portland and
find someone there.

"Unless you were willing to drive up there, you couldn't get any."

Clay Cooke, youth department supervisor at OnTrack, a treatment program,
said the drugs of choice among young people in Jackson County remain
marijuana and alcohol, but there's been a dramatic rise in the use of club
drugs, especially in Ashland, in recent years.

Although many teens think they can't be harmed by the pills that are
sometimes stamped with four-leaf clovers or cartoon characters, at least
two Portland-area teens and many more around the country have died after
using club drugs.

"They are extremely dangerous and addictive, and people die quickly," said
Ken Magee, the Drug Enforcement Administration's assistant special agent in
charge who oversees Oregon and Idaho.

"If your child or teen-ager says they will go to an alcohol-free all- night
dance party that we refer to commonly as a 'rave,' I would handcuff them to
their bed," Magee said.

"Allowing your child to go to this type of rave party is equally as
dangerous as allowing your child to go to a crack house."

The most commonly recognized club drug is ecstasy, known by users as "E"
and by law enforcement as MDMA. It is a synthetic drug with
amphetamine-like and hallucinogenic properties.

A number of other drugs are being used at house parties as well, according
to law enforcement and local users, including LSD, GHB, ketamine ("K,"
"Special K"), methamphetamine and Rohypnol, known as "roofies."

Nationally, teen ecstasy use has increased by 71 percent since 1999,
according to a survey released last month by Partnership for a Drug- Free
America.

At the height of her drug use, Kitty said she was using ecstasy twice a
week, use that began with weekend parties but became a regular activity.

"I would never do meth or cocaine. There's a whole host of drugs I wouldn't
do. But the reason people do (club drugs) is because you don't lose your
teeth or have track marks," she said.

"But it's really habit-forming and it really makes you a crabby, bitchy
person."

Kitty quit using club drugs after meeting her boyfriend, "who is very
anti-drug," and being arrested for driving while on ecstasy.

"I like being off of it and experiencing a normal flow of emotions," Kitty
said.