SPECIAL REPORT: CLUB DRUGS

The waves roll in about a half-hour after the pill goes down.

Euphoria rushes through the body. Strangers disappear. Love and empathy
take over other emotions.

Suddenly everything at the party sounds, tastes, smells, looks and feels
better.

This is ecstasy.

But these experiences come with a high price.

Clenched teeth grind down on a rubber pacifier. Vacant eyes betray an
exhausted brain. Absolute lethargy kills the day after.

This is ecstasy?

"This drug scares me to death," Modesto police officer Craig Gundlach said.
"The only reason I consider it more dangerous (than other drugs) is because
of the people it's affecting. We're seeing 14- and 15-year- olds popping
ecstasy like it's candy.

"But this is a hard-core psychoactive drug. And it's being used by kids you
would never expect. Kids who live in Dutchollow. Kids in college who have
futures."

Futures laid on the line with every swallowed pill. Ecstasy is part of the
newest wave of drugs to move from the cities into more rural areas like the
Northern San Joaquin Valley.

They're called club drugs simply because they're often taken at nightclubs
or rave parties. The wave includes the so-called date-rape drugs Rohypnol
and GHB, and the veterinary anesthetic Ketamine. But ecstasy clearly is the
ringleader, and its popularity is spreading as methamphetamine usage did in
the 1980s.

In July, Customs Service agents seized 2.1 million tablets of ecstasy at
Los Angeles International Airport after the pills arrived from France. The
drugs, which weighed nearly 1,100 pounds and had a street value of $40
million, were among 9.3 million tablets confiscated last year by customs
officials.

A recent study by the National Criminal Justice Reference Service found
that 11 percent of high school students surveyed said they had used ecstasy
at least once. More than 51 percent said the drug was easy to obtain.

The easiest place to find ecstasy is at raves, late-night dance parties
that feature loud music, flashing lights and dancing youth. The drug flows
freely; dealers walk through the darkened dance floors hawking ecstasy.

Anyone wondering if Modesto has a rave scene had to look no further than
the California Ballroom last weekend.

It was midnight Saturday and about 700 people jammed inside the rented
building at Sixth and E streets.

The scene built itself around a DJ on a stage flanked by tall stacks of
speakers. He twisted and turned knobs, bouncing sounds around, sending out
strange noises over the top of a techno groove.

Coolly, he sneered into the crowd, a lit cigarette dangling from his mouth.
He flipped a lever, and a single bass drum beat thundered from the speaker,
shaking the floor.

The crowd up front waved for more. The beats came quicker. Every three
seconds. Two seconds. One. He grinned again, this time letting the beat go
on. And on. And on.

And the place exploded into frenzy.

"I come here for the music," said Faustino Lopez of Modesto. "And the
environment. There is no racism and nobody's biased about anything.
Everybody is just open to experience new things."

Lopez, 22, came to the rave with two carloads of friends. He doesn't take
ecstasy, but said two of the 10 or so friends he came with did.

"I get offered (ecstasy) probably two times a rave," he said. "I get asked
if I have any probably about eight times."

It was clear that many people at the rave weren't on drugs. Lopez spoke for
them when he said he simply came for the music, the people and the good
time. And nothing more.

"Personally, I think the drug part ruins it," he said.

It was difficult to tell how many ravers were on ecstasy. Police, who have
been working undercover during many of this year's raves, estimated that
more than 90 percent of ravers take drugs, mostly ecstasy.

Saturday's ravers suggested it was between 50 percent and 75 percent.
Jayson Decambra, 27, a Bay Area promoter who put on Saturday's rave, said
he believed it was less than 50 percent.

"Sure there are f----- -up kids here, but that isn't what it's all about,"
Decambra said. "Unfortunately, (ecstasy) is a part of the scene. There are
people doing drugs everywhere.

"I recently worked setting up for a Britney Spears concert at Concord
Pavilion. I went into the bathroom and smelled marijuana. Anywhere you go
you're going to have that kind of stuff."

Decambra, one of the biggest rave promoters in the Bay Area, stood outside
the California Ballroom and talked about the rave, his first in Modesto.
With no reported injuries or major incidents, the night had been a success.

A few unlucky drug dealers wouldn't have agreed. The Modesto Narcotics
Enforcement Team chose Decambra's rave to start making arrests in an
undercover operation that began in May.

Officer Randy Bolinger answered the two-way radio and strained to hear the
voice over the music.

"We've got the guy who had the devil horns on last time," said an
undercover officer inside the rave. "We're going to try and buy from him
again."

A half-hour later, police officers pulled two men outside and drove them to
a spot on Eighth Street. Lance Andrew Dolin, 23, of San Jose and David
Voscoe Ferber, 19, of Stockton had sold ecstasy pills to undercover
officers, Bolinger said.

Ferber still had three ecstasy pills; Dolan had a little more than $1,000
in $20s, likely from the sale of 50 ecstasy pills, police said. Undercover
officers reported that they also had come in contact that night with
ecstasy dealers who said they had sold 150 more pills. They had sold out by
the time officers caught up with them, and couldn't be arrested.

Ferber and Dolin and two others ended up in Stanislaus County Jail, booked
on charges of possession and sale of a controlled substance. Over the past
week, police rounded up 10 more people from Stanislaus County and the Bay
Area on similar charges and plan more arrests, Sgt. Tim David said.

"We've got out-of-towners selling this stuff to our kids," David said. "If
we can make this uncomfortable enough for them that they take their
drug-dealing rave parties out of Modesto, then we've accomplished our goal."

It is little secret ecstasy wreaks havoc on the body and the mind. The body
temperature can soar 10 degrees, causing hyperthermia, dehydration and
blackouts.

The drug is no easier on the brain. A 1999 study conducted by Johns Hopkins
University found that monkeys who were given ecstasy for as little as four
days suffered brain damage.

"People who take MDMA (ecstasy), even just a few times, are risking
long-term, perhaps permanent, problems with learning and memory," said Dr.
Alan Leshner, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which
funded the study.

That wouldn't surprise Katie Townsend, a 20-year-old woman who drove 90
minutes from Sunnyvale to attend Saturday's rave. She last took ecstasy
July 13, quitting because the drug's dangers started to outweigh the fun.

"I stutter now and I have a hard time remembering things," said Townsend,
who still attends raves to dance and uses glow sticks to entertain people
on ecstasy. "My professor will say something and I'll be writing it down
and forget what he said halfway through it. It just wasn't worth the risk
of ruining my life."

Another critical problem with ecstasy are the decisions made by people
under its influence.

A couple of months ago, a 14-year-old Stanislaus County girl swallowed a
double dose of ecstasy with some of her friends. The night ended with her
performing sex acts with six young men, who videotaped and photographed the
events, Gundlach said.

"This wasn't something she normally would have done," said Gundlach, who
speaks often to school officials and law enforcement agencies to warn of
ecstasy's dangers.

A Modesto High senior took ecstasy for the first time with two of his
friends following this year's prom. As he walked up to his front door early
the next morning, he suffered a seizure and collapsed, unconscious. He
awoke to find firefighters and his father standing over him.

He said it scared him and his friends so badly that none of them will take
the drug again.

A month later, he suffered another seizure after smoking marijuana. So far,
specialists haven't been able to determine why.

"The Modesto Police Department isn't against the music, or the dancing, or
kids getting together and having fun," Gundlach said. "We're not against
their values of peace, love and unity, and respect. What we're against is
young kids being sold an extremely dangerous drug that can dramatically
affect the rest of their lives."

The Modesto Police Department has scheduled a seminar on club drugs, from 7
to 9 p.m. Nov. 5. For more information, call Sgt. Mike Perine, 572-9520.