PENTAGON ATTACKS SURGE IN ECSTASY USE AMONG GIS

WASHINGTON (SH) - After a twenty year decline in drug abuse, the U.S.
military now is confronting a surge in GI use of the "club" drug
Ecstasy, the nation's fastest-growing illegal intoxicant.

While only a tiny portion of the 1.4 million-person active-duty force
is believed to have used the amphetamine-related substance, a series
of recent arrests has focused the Pentagon's attention on the matter.

Among the Ecstasy cases surfacing in the armed services in recent months:

- - Eleven soldiers in the Army's 16th Military Police Brigade at Fort
Bragg, N.C., were busted for using Ecstasy, along with LSD and
marijuana. Two were accused of dealing in the drugs.

- - Five Air Force Academy cadets were charged with possessing Ecstasy,
with two of them drawing prison time.

- - Four sailors on the Navy's aircraft carrier Stennis were arrested
on charges of selling thousands of dollars' worth of Ecstasy and
other club drugs to undercover agents. A lieutenant commander on the
carrier Constellation was busted for Ecstasy dealing.

- -Seventy Marines from California and Arizona bases have tested
positive for Ecstasy in the past year and the brass recommended that
all be booted from the service with less-than-honorable discharges.

"Ecstasy is dangerous and the military is taking steps to" combat its
use, an in-house Pentagon publication announced this month.

Military leaders are quick to note that only a tiny minority of
troops have been documented to have used or trafficked in the drug,
which is both a stimulant and mild hallucinogen, and is popular at
nightclubs, college campuses and all-night dance gatherings called
"raves."

In fiscal 2000, 2.3 million urinalysis drug tests taken by GIs turned
up 1,070 positives for Ecstasy. That amounts to more than double the
number detected in 1999, and a fourfold jump from 1998, according to
Pentagon figures.

Even with that increase, Ecstasy use still falls far behind that of
marijuana and cocaine by troops. In 1999, for instance, drug tests
registered 12,000 positive for marijuana use and 2,800 for cocaine,
military statistics show.

And drug use overall in the services is a shadow of what it was in
the 1970s and 1980s, when as many as a third of the troops reported
using illegal drugs in the previous month.

To combat the rise in Ecstasy use, the Pentagon is attacking on several fronts:

- - A new, improved test that is better at picking up traces of Ecstasy
is being used.

- - Random drug tests are being given on weekends, holidays, Mondays
and even the middle of the night in order to try to catch more
recreational users.

- - More anti-drug instruction and abuse prevention education programs
are being established.

- - Military dogs are being trained to detect Ecstasy in living and work spaces.