CLUB DRUGS SEND MORE YOUNG PEOPLE TO HOSPITALS

Club drugs, including Ecstasy and GHB, are sending increasing
numbers of young people to the hospital with toxic reactions and
overdoses, emergency-room data released Tuesday shows.

Emergency rooms in 21 metropolitan areas tracked by the Drug Abuse
Warning Network reported 4,511 emergency visits involving Ecstasy in
2000. That's a 58% increase over 1999.

The network, part of a federal agency that tracks hospital admissions,
also reported 4,969 visits involving the "date-rape drug" GHB, which
is a 56% increase over the previous year's 3,178 cases.

Club drugs still account for only a fraction of emergency-room visits.
However, the numbers indicate the drugs are becoming more widespread.

Club-drug users began arriving at emergency rooms in 1994. The drugs,
including Ecstasy, GHB, an anesthetic called Ketamine and the
so-called date-rape drug, Rohypnol, had grown popular at all-night
rave parties and in dance clubs. That year, emergency rooms reported
56 visits for GHB and 253 visits for Ecstasy.

People ages 25 and younger account for almost a third of drug
emergencies, the data show. Their share is much higher for club-drug
emergencies: People 25 and younger make up 80% of Ecstasy emergencies
and 60% of those involving GHB.

"We are concerned about the continued increase of club drugs among
young people, which seems to be contributing to the overall increase
of young people ending up in emergency rooms," says Mark Weber,
spokesman for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
Administration in Rockville, Md., which collects the data from 466
hospitals.

The patients may mention using more than one drug, so drug mentions
exceed drug visits. In 2000, the hospitals recorded 601,776
emergency-room visits.

Emergency-room visits for other drugs also increased from 1999 to
2000. Heroin and morphine visits increased 15% to 97,287.
Emergency-room mentions of prescription drugs containing oxycodone,
such as OxyContin, Percocet and Percodan, increased 68% to 10,825.

Although drug-related visits to emergency rooms stayed the same or
decreased in 14 of 21 cities, seven metro areas reported overall
increases: Seattle (32%), Boston (28%), Los Angeles (22%), Miami
(20%), Chicago (16%), Minneapolis (12%) and Phoenix (9%).

Emergency-room visits decreased 12% in San Francisco and 19% in
Baltimore. The other metro areas -- Atlanta, Buffalo, Dallas, Denver,
Detroit, New Orleans, New York, Newark, N.J., Philadelphia, St. Louis,
San Diego and Washington -- reported no overall change.