ECSTASY USE INCREASING ACROSS SOUTH JERSEY

Stiff Ecstasy laws are stifling the drug's trade at clubs in South Jersey,
but the so-called "club drug" continues to gain popularity, moving beyond
the strobe lights and into the privacy of house parties, authorities say.

Seizures of the synthetic drug are up in both Camden and Gloucester
counties, and a growing number of young people undergoing drug screenings
are listing Ecstasy as one of the substances they have used.

"It's pervasive in every suburb in New Jersey," said Terrence Farley, a
prosecutor in Ocean County helping lead a statewide crackdown on Ecstasy.

Also known by its chemical acronym MDMA, Ecstasy is a a hallucinogenic
stimulant that causes a strong sense of euphoria. Side effects include
nausea, elevated blood pressure and dehydration. Although long-term effects
largely are unknown, health officials believe use damages neurons in the
brain critical to thought and memory.

Club-goers on Ecstasy have, at least in the past, been easy to spot.
Telltale signs have included sucking on baby pacifiers and lollipops to
fight off the urge to grind teeth and drinking bottled water to combat
dehydration.

But Ecstasy is no longer just a club drug.

"There are people selling in clubs, and people in Philly selling on the
street, and there are kids selling out of their houses," said Arlene
Brasdis, 18, formerly of Clementon. Before going through rehabilitation,
she used Ecstasy nearly every weekend, she said.

Ecstasy use among young people still trails far behind alcohol and
marijuana. But health officials say they have evidence of growing
experimentation with the drug. At Kennedy Memorial Hospital in Cherry Hill,
one out of seven students referred by school districts for drug screenings
say they use or have tried Ecstasy, said Carol Janer, a case management
specialist.

"That's a pretty high number for something that's clandestine," Janer said.
"It's been something that's grabbed hold very quickly."

Authorities are still amazed at the speed at which Ecstasy use has grown.
Three years ago, Gloucester County officials had no reports of Ecstasy
seizures. Camden County didn't even keep track of the drug two years ago.

Now, "every week we get information, we open another case, we see it," said
Sgt. Bill Reichert, a narcotics investigator with the Gloucester County
Prosecutor's Office. His office's Narcotics Strike Force seized about 1,
800 pills this year, more than triple the unit's take last year.

Camden County investigators have confiscated about 500 pills so far this
year, compared with 672 all of last year, said Lt. Joseph A. Bowen of the
Camden County High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area task force.

Authorities in Camden and Gloucester counties have been going undercover to
find the big dealers.

Burlington County has reported sporadic Ecstasy arrests. A man arrested on
a theft charge two weeks ago in Moorestown had 122 Ecstasy tablets on him,
police said. But that county does not have the clubs or party venues that
would make an Ecstasy problem visible, said Detective Sgt. Jack Smith,
spokesman for the prosecutor's office.

Since last summer, undercover officers have prowled clubs and parties armed
with new state and federal laws making Ecstasy dealing a crime equivalent
to selling heroin or cocaine. Fear of jail time has made those caught with
the drug eager to help police catch other suppliers. But it also has made
dealers and buyers more cautious.

"Last year and the year before, for us, was like shooting fish in a
barrel," said Ocean County's Farley.

This year, his undercover investigators have been lucky to find someone
holding more than two or three pills at a time.

State laws can send someone with 500 or more Ecstasy pills to jail for up
to 20 years. A change in federal sentencing guidelines this year increased
potential jail terms to more than six years for people caught selling 800
pills. South Jersey dealers now dodge the tough penalties by carrying fewer
pills. Dealers also avoid undercover officers by working outside clubs. A
contact will approach people inside the club, and the customer will step
outside to buy. That complicates surveillance efforts by police.

Users are becoming more cautious too. Teenagers are more likely to take
their Ecstasy before going to a club or dance parties known as "raves,"
Farley said. Less common, too, are the pacifiers.

"They're much smarter about how they do it," Farley said.

Ecstasy continues to be used amid the throbbing bass and flashing lights of
area clubs, but users now are replicating the rave scene in their homes,
authorities said. Reports from parents' groups and teenage informants,
officials said, show teenagers increasingly are using Ecstasy in the home,
making it harder for law enforcement to catch users.

Brasdis, the former Ecstasy user, said teens and people in their early 20s
would bring beer, marijuana and Ecstasy to parties she attended last summer
in Runnemede, Pine Hill and Lindenwold. Such parties are rarely busted,
Farley said, because they are so spontaneously planned.

Though Brasdis, now of Philadelphia, said she no longer uses the drug, she
said she still sees friends regularly " rolling" - slang for an Ecstasy
high that came from the practice of hiding doses in candies like Tootsie Rolls.

Much of America's Ecstasy supply comes from Europe, smuggled across the
Atlantic on commercial flights. For South Jersey, much of the supply is
believed to be coming through Philadelphia International Airport. Customs
officials have seized about 150 pounds of Ecstasy at the airport this year,
compared with 10 pounds last year, said Daniel Sedley, chief customs
inspector at the airport.

The federal Drug Enforcement Administration says Ecstasy is being reported
in every county in New Jersey.

"You could almost say it's at epidemic proportions now," said Anthony D.
Cammarato, DEA special agent in Newark.

Tablets submitted to DEA labs nationwide increased from just 196 in 1993 to
143,600 in 1998. Each week, an estimated 2 million tablets are smuggled
into the United States, with 750,000 doses consumed in the Newark, New York
and Jersey Shore corridor, DEA officials said.

Federal authorities arrested a man in early August who landed at Newark
International Airport with nearly five pounds of Ecstasy tablets with a
street value of about $300, 000.

Reichert, the Gloucester County investigator, said he noticed the same
Ecstasy dealers are selling to much of South Jersey. The suspects being
prosecuted in Gloucester or Camden counties are wanted for dealing at the
Shore.

Ecstasy users say they are drawn to the drug because it produces euphoria,
making it easier to dance and meet people of the opposite sex.

"It took all my inhibitions and threw them out the window," said Bill, a
22-year-old warehouse worker who is in rehabilitation and did not want his
full name used. "It makes you want to be social and around people."

Ignored by the Ecstasy users, health experts say, are the potential
long-term effects and the unknown additives mixed in the drugs by illicit labs.

Ecstasy was first synthesized in 1912 by a German drug company for use as
an appetite suppressant. In the 1970s, the drug was used by a small group
of therapists to facilitate psychotherapy. Illicit use did not become
popular until the late 1980s and early '90s, when it began turning up at raves.

Officials first saw large quantities of Ecstasy in New Jersey in 1997, when
a club owner in Margate was arrested, said DEA spokesman Earl Fielder. Back
then, Ecstasy was a novel drug confined to the subculture of raves and
electronica music.

"It's no longer what we would even call a club drug or a designer drug,"
Farley said. "It's everywhere."