AD CAMPAIGN TARGETS NOTIONS OF 'LOVE DRUG'

A national advertising campaign that debuts Monday will try to scrape the
shiny, happy gloss from the Ecstasy drug craze. The Partnership for a
Drug-Free America's first-ever focus on Ecstasy, as seen through a series
of public service advertisements on TV and in newspapers, represents a
watershed moment in the national response to the club drug.

Experts say Ecstasy is taking root in youth culture and an aggressive,
concerted campaign is needed to unsell the drug to a growing number of
captivated youth. The ads will confront the notions of Ecstasy as a
harmless "love drug" whose benefits far outweigh the risks.

One ad targeted at parents portrays a grieving father, Jim Heird, whose
daughter, Danielle, 21, of Las Vegas, died the third time she used Ecstasy.

"I would've given anything for some warning signs. I would have moved. I
would have locked her up. I don't care," Heird says in the commercial. "A
parent's not supposed to survive their children. It's not the scheme of
things."

In another ad, a coroner reads Danielle Heird's autopsy report while a
photo collage of a happy, healthy Danielle crosses the screen.

One of a second set of commercials, which is aimed at teenagers, depicts a
dance rave in which a girl on Ecstasy lies crumpled on the floor while her
friends continue dancing around her. Another ad depicts a house party where
kids high on Ecstasy make out and massage one another. When one boy becomes
ill and crawls into a bathroom, a friend merely shuts the bathroom door.
The tag lines at the end of each ad read, "Ecstasy: Where's the love?"

The drug, 3-4 methylenedioxy-methamphetamine, or MDMA, was initially used
in psychotherapy. It emerged as a recreational drug on college campuses in
the mid-1980s, says Glen Hanson, acting director of the National Institute
on Drug Abuse in Bethesda, Md. It spread through the rave party scene in
the early 1990s.

"It's not just a little fad. It's a very disturbing trend," says Mitchell
Rosenthal, president of the Phoenix House Foundation, the nation's largest
drug-treatment provider.

In a new survey of teen drug use, the partnership found that teens view the
drug as only slightly more dangerous than alcohol, tobacco, marijuana and
inhalants. Drug experts worry Ecstasy will spread like cocaine did in the
late 1970s and early 1980s, spawning a generation of addicts faster than
health officials could issue warnings.

"By then, we were so deep in the well, it took a long time to climb back
out," says Stephen Pasierb, president of the partnership. It wasn't until
college basketball star Len Bias died of a cocaine overdose that teens
began to see the scary side of cocaine use, Pasierb says.

Now, as with cocaine, teens seem unaware or unimpressed by the growing body
of scientific evidence that Ecstasy is dangerous.

Scientists have studied extensively Ecstasy's effect on laboratory animals.
Human clinical studies are underway, says George Ricaurte, an associate
professor of neurology at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

The animal studies indicate that using Ecstasy in doses equivalent to
amounts that people usually take can damage the brain's serotonin cells.
Serotonin is a neurotransmitter involved in appetite, sleep, mood
regulation, memory and sexual function.

Ricaurte says the data in animals are "extraordinarily strong" that brain
damage occurs. He says it is highly likely the same effects will be borne
out in humans.

"One of the most insidious aspects of this particular drug is it could be
damaging cells without any warning that the damage is taking place,"
Ricaurte says. "Any drug that has the wherewithal to damage a nerve cell in
the brain has to be regarded with extreme care and caution. Nerve cells in
the brain don't grow back."

Questions remain about how high a dose causes damage and whether some
people are more prone to damage than others.

"I don't think there's any question that MDMA has the ability to damage
certain brain cells," Hanson says. "It really boils down to a benefit-risk
analysis. Are you willing to expose yourself to the possibility of brain
damage or even death for recreation? All these things seem like a fairly
high price to pay so you can have a good time on a Friday night."

Danielle Heird, a restaurant hostess at a Las Vegas casino who died July
20, 2000, may have been one of those people who is extremely sensitive to
Ecstasy. Gary Telgenhoff, the deputy medical examiner in Clark County,
Nev., who performed the autopsy on Heird, says she took a small amount.

At a club with friends, Heird took Ecstasy and complained of feeling ill
and having trouble walking, her father says. Her friends took her to her
boyfriend's apartment so she could lie down, he says.

"They went back out to continue partying," Jim Heird says. She died before
they came back.