WHY ALL THE AGONY OVER ECSTASY?

Aired July 2, 2001 - 3:00 p.m. ET

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I didn't care about anything but doing ecstasy.
I didn't want to wake up in the morning unless I knew I had a pill
waiting there next to me to take.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MILES O'BRIEN, GUEST HOST: Do you rave about ecstasy?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think it's in the school. I know that I'm
going to see it when I go to college.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: It's illegal, easy to get, and a staple at all-night dance
parties called raves.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've never experienced an increase in drug use like
we've seen in ecstasy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's a terrible myth out there that ecstasy is a
benign, harmless fun drug, a hope drug.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: Hope, happiness, love: Users describe a feel-good drug that
releases mood-altering serotonin in the brain, unleashing a friendly
euphoria.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's just such a good feeling and it's such a great
heart that we really don't care.

(END VIDEO CLIP) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We know that it causes a dramatic rise in body
temperature. So one of the things that we're worried about is that in
clubs and hot settings, people's body temperature rises dramatically,
they can go into convulsions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: Why all the agony over ecstasy?

Hello, everybody. Welcome to TALKBACK LIVE. I'm Miles O'Brien, in for
Bobbie Battista.

Scientists call it methylenedioxyamphetamine, or MDMA. It is a potent
pill that combines the effects of speed and LSD. On the street and in
the raves, they call it ecstasy, or the love drug. Users describe being
awash with euphoria. Some say they want to hug the whole world. But at
what cost all these good feelings?

Like any illegal drug, it comes with a healthy dose of organized crime,
turf battles and violence, and many researchers warn of some adverse
health effects, even permanent brain damage.

We'll hear from the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy
in just a minute. But first, why do people use ecstasy anyway? Joining
us to talk about it, Charles Van Deventer, a former ecstasy user. He
wrote a "My Turn" column in last week's "Newsweek."

Charles, welcome to the program.

CHARLES VAN DEVENTER, FORMER ECSTASY USER: Hi, how are you?

O'BRIEN: All right. You used to use ecstasy, don't use it now. Take us
back a little bit. What -- what drew you to the drug and what was the
experience -- initially, at least -- positive that led you to do it
again?

VAN DEVENTER: Oh, I would say that the reason that I started using the
drug was I was 23, 24 years old and living in New York. It was the
thing to do. It was a lot of fun.

O'BRIEN: Describe it for us. What was it like when you were under the
influence of this drug?

VAN DEVENTER: Extreme euphoria, peace with the world, the kind of
closeness that you probably couldn't experience in any other way with
your friends or with strangers with, you know, the lights, anything.
You know, it was -- it was a very, very powerful experience. And when
you're young and you're looking for new experiences, that's -- that's an
appeal.

O'BRIEN: Did you have the sense, at least initially, Charles, that it
was relatively harmless? Or did that -- did it become evident to you
that there were some side effects pretty quickly?

VAN DEVENTER: It became -- it became evident that it was not harmless
quickly. One of the things was that people were definitely saying that
it wasn't addictive. And that was sort of appealing, because when you
hear it about all of the other drugs that people had done in the '60,
'70s and '80, the addiction thing is the thing that really stopped most
people like me, most 20-somethings from, you know, going down that road
at least at first.

The appeal of ecstasy not being addictive, or you know, not being all
that harmful -- maybe a little bit harmful, but if you only do it a
dozen times or 10 times, what's going to be the worst thing, you know?
And there was a lot of information that people were putting out on the
Internet at the time, or the Internet was just starting. So, you know,
they were using that tool to be able to debunk the real science and say
things like, you know, oh, the rumors aren't true, don't believe it.
It's -- ecstasy is nothing but a good time and it's good for society and
the community in general to experience this thing.

O'BRIEN: Charles, we have a bit of an expert in the audience with us.
Sarah goes to Emory University. She's working on a master's thesis on
this very subject, the subject of ecstasy. Give us a sense, first of
all, Sarah, how much good science is out there on ecstasy and a little
bit of the history as well?

SARAH: Well, there's really not a lot of good science out there. I mean,
the drug was put on schedule II in 1985. It was made illegal. But
before that, it was -- it was a prescription drug that was widely
available, and historically, was used actually in marriage counseling.

So it's a drug that's been criminalized only very recently. And a lot
of people back, you know, 10, 15 years ago were using this drug not
considering themselves to be drug users. And they didn't consider
themselves to be people who would do cocaine or heroin or speed or drugs
that were illegal. They were just having a good time with the drug
every once in a while.

O'BRIEN: Sarah, is it still possible to get what as known as ecstasy in
a prescription form from a doctor, or has that been banned?

SARAH: No, it is on schedule II now. It's pretty much impossible to do
that.

O'BRIEN: How did that happen? How did it go from being prescription,
mainstream, doctors giving it to folks to improve their marriages to
something that fuels an all-night dance party?

SARAH: Well, it happened very quickly, and I have to say that it was --
a big part of it was media sensationalism, because the drug was put on
schedule II for a year on a trial basis and was effectively never taken
off. And this happened right in the middle of the, quote/unquote, "war
on drugs." That was a big part of it.

A lot of it, too, has to do with the demographics that the drug appeals
to. This is young, white, suburban, middle-class to upper- middle class
children. These are the, you know, the future of our country. We can't,
you know, we can't mess around with that. So I think, you know, that's
why the drug has gotten so much attention.

O'BRIEN: All right, Sarah. Charles, do you want to add on that? It's
interesting how it evolved. It almost seems as if it became an illegal
drug sort of by accident.

VAN DEVENTER: Yeah, I think that that's probably true. One of the
things that was -- I can remember definitely in '94, '95, '96 when I was
really doing it as a recreational thing you wouldn't have enough
information about it coming from the drug companies or the government.
Nobody was doing any research on it. From what we understood, you know,
the rave community or whatever, what we understood was it was never
going to become legal again, so the drug-makers weren't doing any tests
on it because they would never make any money with it. So...

O'BRIEN: Tell us -- Charles, tell us about your decision to quit. Why
did you quit? What scared you and why would you tell others to quit?

VAN DEVENTER: There's a lot of reasons that you quit. I think that one
of the reasons is I got older. I wasn't as invincible as I was when I
was younger. I was, you know -- when you're 21, the idea of getting
arrested isn't -- I mean, it's scary but it's not the worst thing in the
world. When you're 30, you have other responsibilities. You know, you
have...

O'BRIEN: So you basically, Charles, you grew up?

VAN DEVENTER: That's right.

O'BRIEN: Yeah.

VAN DEVENTER: That's right.

O'BRIEN: I guess it happens -- it happens every now and then.

VAN DEVENTER: Yeah.

O'BRIEN: All right...

VAN DEVENTER: And also...

O'BRIEN: Go ahead, finish.

VAN DEVENTER: You know, you -- I think with drugs -- with any drug, and
with ecstasy in particular, you start to notice that your friends become
people who use ecstasy, and people who don't use ecstasy are no longer
your friends. And there's a lot of stuff that goes on that's maybe not
so fun and not so huggy about all that situation. You really -- yeah,
it's a life lesson that you learn. It's not all fun.

O'BRIEN: All right. Let's -- we've got somebody on the phone who is
going to add to this discussion. His name is Rick Doblin, and he's
founder of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies. I
know you all know it very well. He supports moving toward the
legalization of ecstasy.

Rick, thanks for being with us.

RICK DOBLIN, FOUNDER, MULTIDISCIPLINARY ASSOCIATION FOR PSYCHEDELIC
STUDIES: Yes, I'm glad to be here. Thank you for inviting me.

O'BRIEN: All right. Why would you want to legalize ecstasy? And if you
could talk a little bit as well about the history -- the fact that it
was prescribed not too long ago is kind of interesting.

DOBLIN: Yeah. Actually, it never was prescribed, and it's not a
scheduled II drug, it's a schedule I drug. It was used by...

O'BRIEN: What does that mean for those -- to the uninitiated, schedule
I, schedule II? What does that mean?

DOBLIN: Well, schedule I is marijuana. Marijuana, heroin, other drugs
that are considered to have no currently acceptable medical use. Drugs
can be researched if they're in schedule I if you get FDA permission to
do so, but there is no prescription and they have a high potential for
abuse.

Schedule II drugs are drugs like cocaine that have a medical use as an
anesthetic drug that still have a high potential for abuse. Methadone,
other drugs like that are in schedule II.

So that MDMA, prior to the point that it was criminalized in 1985, it
was used by psychiatrists and psychotherapists. About a half a million
doses were used from the mid-'70s to early '80s. But it was never a
prescription drug. It was never manufactured a pharmaceutical company.
It just was not illegal.

Once it became illegal in 1985 it was put in schedule I on an emergency
basis and then it was kept there even though administrative law judge
hearings with the DEA suggested, ruled that it should be in schedule I.
Those were overruled by the head of the DEA, and we won then. And the
appeals court, they helped to coordinate the effort back then to make
MDMA available to physicians as a schedule III drug.

O'BRIEN: Rick, why should it be available to physicians for
prescription? What is the therapeutic use? What good would it do? What
would it offer that some other drug that is currently available by
prescription doesn't offer already?

DOBLIN: Well, there is no drug that is used to facilitate psychotherapy.
MDMA in the of a skilled psychiatrist or psychotherapist can help people
to deal with difficult emotions. That's also why it's useful in
recreational contexts: people like to deal with emotions and talking to
other people, trying to meet people of the opposite sex. But in
therapy, it helps people to go into their difficult emotions.

So for instance, we're trying to get permission from the FDA to do work
with women survivors of sexual assault with post-traumatic stress.
We're also trying to do work with terminal illness, with people who are
facing the fears and anxieties related to their impending death.

Since it was made illegal in 1985, it has not been possible to do
research into the therapeutic use of MDMA. Three studies have been
approved, all basic safety studies, and what they have shown is that
MDMA can be safely administered under medical supervision. We are now
trying to submit a protocol to FDA, which is going to go in about two
weeks for permission to do a study with MDMA for the treatment of
post-traumatic stress.

I just got a dissertation, by the way, completed at Harvard, at the
Kennedy School of Government, on how to regulate the medical use of
psychedelics, particularly MDMA. So it can be done.

O'BRIEN: All right. We want to talk some more about that, but just
before we get away, I want to bring this back to some of the health
effects here. John is a doctor from California who's seen the health
effects first hand. Just give us a sense of the downside of all of
this.

JOHN: Well, the downside is that, for one, you can't take a drug like a,
a serotonin (UNINTELLIGIBLE) drug like this, which is a mood- enhancing
drug, and not affect the chemistry of your whole body. And so it has a
spillover effect from, you know, in the rest of the body.

And so I've noticed mainly with adrenal-related areas of the body and
other aspects that, you know, people have to come back up from this
drug. So coffee goes up, nicotine use goes up. And so you start
bouncing around kind of like an upper and downer effect. And so my
patients that I've heard stories from, you know, they have many reasons
for doing it. It's sort of like the cheap heaven sort of drug to take,
and there is no cheap way to do that. And the downside is that, then,
the rest of their body is trying to compensate.

O'BRIEN: All right. John, I appreciate that. We're going to take a
break right now and then we're going to come back and talk a little bit
more about this. When we come back, we'll hear about the dangers of
ecstasy a little more from the deputy director of the White House Office
of National Drug Control Policy. We'll be right back to hear from him.

Last month, former mafia hitman Sammy "The Bull" Gravano pled guilty to
selling thousands of ecstasy pills. Gravano entered the witness
protection program in 1992 and moved to Arizona after testifying against
his former boss, John Gotti. Arizona authorities say Gravano is
operating the largest ecstasy ring in the state.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: All right. Welcome back to TALKBACK LIVE. Joining us now is
Dr. Don Vereen Jr. He is the deputy director of the White House Office
of National Drug Control Policy. Dr. Vereen, thanks for being with us.

DR. DON VEREEN JR., DEPUTY DIRECTOR, WHITE HOUSE OFFICE OF NATIONAL DRUG
CONTROL POLICY: Hi. It's a pleasure to be here.

O'BRIEN: All right. Put this into some perspective for us. Is it a
growing trend, as we've been saying, and how -- how much is it being
used right now in the U.S.?

VEREEN: It appears that meth -- that ecstasy is a growing trend,
especially among young children: In 12th, 10th and 8th grades, we're
seeing a pretty decent spike in the use of ecstasy, and that's troubling
for us. Some of these young people have been hearing that the use of
this drug is benign, you get a wonderful feeling when you take it. But
as you're starting to elicit from your audience and other guests, that
there is a downside to taking this drug.

This is not unlike other drugs where the myth and the lore initially is
that this is a wonderful drug that's different from all of the others,
it's OK to take, you can't get addicted, and -- and it's OK to take.
And that's not the case with -- with ecstasy.

O'BRIEN: Is it readily available? Let me ask. We have some high-school
age kids here. If you wanted to get it, do you think you could readily
get it? Just applaud if you could.

All right, most of -- most of the high-schoolers here have applauded,
saying they could get it easily. Does that surprise you, Dr. Vereen?

VEREEN: No, not at all. In fact, they're the ones who tell us that it's
easy to get. They're the ones who tell us who is selling it to them,
how much it costs. And we use that kind of research, take that into
account, and try to come up with responsible policies.

One of those was to schedule this in a category based on biomedical
research. One of the things that some of your guests have started to
refer to was the effect of this drug on the brain. Sure, it may make
people feel more empathic or want to hug someone, but there are also
long-term effects. There are effects on memory, effects on mood that
don't go away right away.

You don't want to prescribe a drug based purely on its positive
effects. You have to weigh them with the negative effects. And there
are some major negative effects.

O'BRIEN: Let's go to the phone line right now. Michael is on the line
from Indian, and Michael, tell us your story.

MICHAEL: Well, my name's Michael. I'm from Indiana. I've been using
ecstasy I guess for about seven years now. I have graduated from the
university with my bachelor's degree. I'm working on my master's degree.

I agree with the doctor when he says that are some negative outcomes to
this drug, but I think the major problem that you're seeing now are the
kids who are using this drugs overly use the drugs. It's just like
alcohol: You can't function in life if you walk around drunk all of the
time. You can't function in life if you walk around on ecstasy all of
the time. It's plain and simple.

The problem is not in the drug; it's in the willpower of the people
using this drug.

O'BRIEN: All right. Let's go to Cindy. Cindy, go.

CINDY: I know of a boy -- he was 19, and he actually died at my -- like
he didn't go to my school. He dropped out. But he lived in my town
last year, and he was at rave party, and he got so dehydrated and so
overheated he went into convulsions and died.

O'BRIEN: Dr. Vereen, we hear such two opposing views on this. How do we
sort this out?

VEREEN: You know, I'm not sure that there are opposing views. It's
what's exposed.

I would advise young people or people who have doubts to go and talk to
an emergency room physician, to go to a treatment facility and talk to
people who say that they can't stop taking ecstasy. And -- and that
direct testimonial is all the evidence that young people will -- will
need to be able to make the right decision.

O'BRIEN: Let's go to Yani in the audience. Go ahead, Yani.

YANI: Why isn't alcohol illegal if so many people ruin their lives just
as much from alcohol as they do from ecstasy, if not more?

O'BRIEN: Dr. Vereen, alcohol a drug as well.

VEREEN: It's a very good question, but alcohol is also a part of our
diet. You can eat too much butter and kill yourself with a heart
attack. There are lots of things out there that are legal or OK in
terms of -- of diet. But with alcohol, because it's not just a part of
our diet and is also a drug, there are rules, laws in fact, that limit
its use. It's illegal, alcohol is illegal for those who are under 21,
and if you're caught with a certain level of alcohol within your blood
while operating a car, which we know from research impairs your ability
to operate that car, you're -- you're arrested and appropriate
punishment is generated. And that's because when you're under the
influence of a drug like alcohol or anything else, while you are
operating a motor vehicle, you're a danger to others.

So society has made a decision, taken a stand and said, you cannot take
this substance and be a danger to others.

O'BRIEN: Let's go to...

VEREEN: There are rules limiting its use.

O'BRIEN: Let's go to Omre.

OMRE: I was just wondering, I've heard that drug dealers put other
things in ecstasy than just pure ecstasy, and that is pretty much what
usually hurts the people that take it. Is that true?

VEREEN: That is true, and it's one of the things that we're very, very
concerned about. This pill, ecstasy is marketed in a pill. They're
often white. They have nice logos on them. They are sold for on average
about $25 a pill. And they're marketed to young people as something
that's legitimate.

But when you go to a pharmacy, you know what you're getting when you go
into that pharmacy. When someone on the street or in a rave sells you
something, you have absolutely no guarantee of what is in that pill.
There could be rat poison in it. You have no idea what's in that pill.
And it's sold to you as something legitimate, and the next thing you
know you're in an emergency room. We are very concerned about that.

O'BRIEN: Let's go to Mike.

MIKE: I'm not an advocate of ecstasy, but I want to know about the
number of people that die because of alcohol, the number of people that
are addicted to it -- are 10 times the amount of any drug on the
planet. And when are we going to face up and face that?

VEREEN: We do face -- we do face up and face that. And in fact, it
would be nice to hear your protests about alcohol and tobacco. I'm glad
to hear that. But we certainly don't want to contribute to any further
deaths, especially of young people who are just starting out their
lives.

You go into a rave, you take a pill, you get dehydrated, you end up in
an emergency room, and possibly dead. We don't want to see that at all.

O'BRIEN: Rhonda, go ahead.

RHONDA: I have to disagree with what gentleman is saying that alcohol is
a part of our diet. In our family, we oppose the use of alcohol, and we
encourage our children not to consume alcohol. So how can you say it's
part of our diet? If there's a product on the market or food that
contains alcohol, I don't buy it. And I tell my friends, don't buy this
product, it has alcohol in it.

I don't understand how you can compare the use of ecstasy with the fact
that alcohol is a normal part of our diet, because it's not.

O'BRIEN: So, Rhonda, do you think that alcohol should be outlawed at as
well?

RHONDA: Yes, it should be. The government is making money off of it,
the only reason why it's not...

O'BRIEN: All right. Well, and flip it around: Do you think they should
regulate and make money off of things like ecstasy?

RHONDA: No, they should not. I don't think alcohol should be legal. I
don't think cigarettes should be legal. People do things to get tobacco
and to get alcohol and to get drugs that harm the general public.

O'BRIEN: Let's go to Joe.

JOE: Yeah, I was just wondering, if -- if you're so concerned about the
uses of ecstasy, then wouldn't you be doing something to make -- to make
the use of it go down when really they're getting higher than they have
ever been before?

VEREEN: We are -- we are doing something. Research tells us that when
we talk to young people, they tell us, if you really want to reach us
with a message, give us the facts. Don't tell us just say no. Don't
tell us what to do. Give us the facts. And that's what we've -- we've
done, started to do in a very, very big way.

We have pictures showing what ecstasy does to the brain after just one
or two administrations of the -- of the drug. And young people give us
the feedback that "I'm not sure that I want to do that to my brain. I'm
not sure that I want lasting effects on my ability to remember things.
I'm not sure I want to risk a death and not having the full use of my
brain." And that's -- that's one of the very important principles of
prevention that we're putting forward right now.

O'BRIEN: All right. Dr. Don Vereen, thanks very much for your time
today. We know you have a busy schedule. We'll let you get back to it.

A couple of e-mails before we leave you, this one from Michael. "I have
used ecstasy well over 200 times. I haven't used it in over a year, but
still know that I have lasting effects. I have regular chills in my
spine they I never had before I started using it regularly. Also, I
really am never as happy as I used to be. This drug may be safer than
others but not safe."

Jonathan in New Orleans has this: "Every generation has its drug of
choice. The next generation will have theirs as we have ours."

Well, do ecstasy users belong in jail, though? We'll find out why an
Illinois lawmaker has proposed one of the toughest state laws yet to try
and combat the ecstasy epidemic. Easy for me to say, or you to say.
Anyway, we'll see you in a minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Last year, the U.S. Customs Service seized 9.3 million ecstasy
pills, up from 400,000 in 1997.

We're back. Welcome back to TALKBACK LIVE.

The Illinois legislature passed one of the toughest bills yet to deal
with the ecstasy epidemic. There, I said it. On the phone with us is
Illinois senator -- state senator, that is -- Kirk Dillard, sponsor of
that legislation.

Senator Dillard, just tell us what the legislation would do. What would
the new law do and how would it stiffen penalties for those caught
trafficking in ecstasy?

KIRK DILLARD, ILLINOIS STATE SENATOR: Well, the new law essentially
makes anybody who has about more than 15 pills of ecstasy with an intent
to distribute these pills -- in other words, we're talking not the user
but somebody who is a distributor or a seller or a pusher for lack of a
better word -- of ecstasy, we would put in Illinois ecstasy in the same
category, the same statute with cocaine, heroin and LSD. And seeing the
results of the early use of ecstasy with the number of deaths we have
had, primarily of youths and college kids in Illinois. We believe in
the Illinois legislature -- the bill is pending before our governor --
that ecstasy belongs with cocaine and heroin and LSD in our statutes if
you're going to push it in larger quantities, about 15 pills or more.

O'BRIEN: All right. Mike has a question for you. Go ahead, Mike.

MIKE: Well, I'm just confused. If the goal is to really get rid of
ecstasy, then why is that you're drawing a line at larger quantities?
Like why start at 15? Why not go lower?

DILLARD: Well, we clearly want to get at the -- the actual person who is
selling, distributing and pushing ecstasy on the primarily youth of
Illinois. The mayor of Chicago, Mayor Daley, has targeted rave parties
where this drug is sold. You know, sometimes it only costs a dollar to
produce one of these pills, and people sell it for $30 to $50. And
we've got a number of deaths, and we want to get at the actual
distribution chain of this drug.

And if you look at what's happened in Europe, ecstasy has become the
drug of choice in Europe over heroin and cocaine and those types of
drugs. And what happens in Europe eventually happens within the United
States.

Within the last month -- I just heard those statistics -- within the
last month 9 million drugs seized by U.S. Customs officials in Illinois
alone at O'Hare Airport. They've had two major busts of nearly a
million pills of ecstasy coming from Scandinavia at O'Hare in Chicago.

MIKE: More power to you. I mean, I'm not trying to say that, you know,
putting any kind of effort toward stopping the use or stopping the
selling of it isn't good. But I guess my issue is just I feel as though
drawing the line at 15, it seems like you're only trying to fight half
of the battle. I mean, it's like "OK, if you're 14, go for it, but you
know, once you hit 15, then continues." I mean, I appreciate the
statistics and everything, but it just doesn't seem like it's -- I mean,
I feel like you have to go all or nothing on this one, like...

O'BRIEN: All right. You know, we've had Rick Doblin on the line here as
well. Rick, I'm curious what your thoughts on this legislation that has
just passed in Illinois or is about to.

DOBLIN: I'm thinking it's a terrible tragedy. Most young people get
their drugs from other young people. Fifteen doses will end up
capturing a lot of high school and college students going to jail for a
very long time.

Prohibition is counterproductive. The deaths that happen from impure
drugs would not happen if MDMA were regulated and legalized.

It's already available. We understand the high school students in the
audience have said that it's available to them. Prohibition has not
stopped that. There's violence associated with it.

But therapeutic use that we're trying to get through the FDA has been
blocked for 15 years. I think it's totally counterproductive.

Dr. Don Vereen ended up lying about the ecstasy pictures that they have
from one or two doses. He said, give kids the facts. He was giving
kids lies and exaggerations.

O'BRIEN: All right, Rick, I've got to cut you out. Rick Doblin, Senator
Dillard, thanks for being with us. We'll be back with more TALKBACK in
just a bit. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: All right. Welcome back to TALKBACK LIVE, and we are talking
about the drug ecstasy. Joining us on the line now is Illinois State
Senator Rickey Hendon, and Deroy Murdock, a syndicated columnist with
the Scripps Howard News Service and a media fellow with the Hoover
Institution at Stanford University. Thank you both for being with us.

Senator, let me begin with you, the legislation which is working its way
around Illinois there that would toughen up rules on ecstasy. You think
that's a good idea?

RICKEY HENDON, ILLINOIS STATE SENATOR: Well, I think it's a good idea.
I supported the legislation. I have some problems with parts of it,
such...

O'BRIEN: What parts?

HENDON: Well, for one thing, you can't get probation. It's mandatory
prison. Mandatory six years with 16 pills or more. And I think that
that's wrong.

There are some other parts. I disagree with Senator Dillard's
interpretation...

O'BRIEN: What's the matter with mandatory sentencing? Do you feel that
that is not a good way to go?

HENDON: Correct, I think that's the wrong way to go, and as a member of
the black caucus, we pointed that out on the Senate floor, that right
now $5 worth of crack cocaine you get mandatory five years in jail. We
saw that as a disparity in sentencing where young black youth deal, have
crack cocaine, $5 worth, one little rock, and they get mandatory prison,
but yet these other drugs, people can get probation, they can get
supervision. And we thought once Illinois sees how this is -- this is
going to work with ecstasy, where they see young, white suburbanites
going to jail as adults, then they'll rethink the entire thing. And we
want them to include crack sentencing in there as well.

O'BRIEN: All right. So let me get this straight. You are against
mandatory sentencing in general, as it relates to crack specifically,
but would like to see mandatory sentencing for ecstasy because you think
it might prove a point.

HENDON: That's -- you're exactly correct. And I think that once the
greater society sees that the white young people are going to jail,
being tried as adults, doing serious time in prison, when they can't get
out they -- I mean, when they finally get out, they can't get a job,
they can't get expungement, then they'll take a look at this where it
relates to young black youth and Latino youth who are dealing with $5
worth of crack cocaine.

O'BRIEN: All right. Let's bring in one more guest. Deroy Murdock is a
syndicated columnist and he has written on the issue of legalization of
drugs.

Deroy, is there any problem that you see right off the top of your head
with the Illinois legislation?

DEROY MURDOCK, SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE: Well, I think the Illinois
legislation is part of this entire effort we have, which I call "the war
on some drugs," different treatment of some drugs, drug a from drug b.
Just to put some of this into perspective, ecstasy in 1998, according to
federal statistics, killed nine people. Alcohol -- I should say
ecstasy-enhanced related deaths. Alcohol-induced deaths, a total of
19,515, and yet no one's talked about locking up the CEO of Seagram's in
jail tonight. I think he'll sleep very well in his own bed this
evening.

And...

O'BRIEN: All right, but wait, let's on a per-capita basis, certainly
more people are using alcohol. Have you done the math on that to see
how that, you know...

MURDOCK: Well, certainly more people are doing it, but again, the point
is they can do it legally. If you're under 21, that's against the law.
If you're driving a car or operating heavy machinery, you're under the
influence, that, of course, is illegal, as it should be.

But the whole point I'm making is that I endorse something that I call
Cognitive Liberty. A group called the Alchemind Society has been
promoting that concept. And that is that we ought to let adults enjoy a
variety of states of consciousness if they wish. And the government
does approve of some alteration of people's minds, through alcohol,
through tobacco, through nicotine, Prozac, Valium, Xanax,
(UNINTELLIGIBLE), a variety of substances which are legal, yet if you
want to use ecstasy or marijuana or something else, that's against the
law.

And essentially, what the government is doing is controlling our
thoughts and saying that some thoughts are OK and permissible and other
thoughts will require you to be locked up in jail -- and in the case of
somebody who's selling 7 ounces of ecstasy, five years in jail. You
need to sell a point of cocaine to get the same five-year sentence or
220 pounds of marijuana to get five years in prison.

O'BRIEN: All right... MURDOCK: So again, we treat different drugs
different ways, and I think the way to do it is Cognitive Liberty. Let
people, now that we're celebrating the 4th of July, do as Thomas
Jefferson said we should do: pursue happiness. And as long as you're
not hurting anyone else and you're an adult, the government should leave
us alone.

O'BRIEN: Life, liberty and the pursuit of ecstasy. All right, Bill, go
ahead. Bill's from Great Britain, where supposedly all this came from.
Talking about Europe in general -- I don't want to be specific there.
But Bill, go ahead. Weigh in.

BILL: We do have a big problem in Britain, but I think the big issue
here is that people are losing sight of the risk. There is relatively
low risk to using ecstasy compared to driving automobiles, to smoking,
to using handguns, all this sort of thing. I think the issue is about
informing individuals about what those risks are and then allowing them
to make their decisions about whether they wish to take the risk or not.

O'BRIEN: Fred...

HENDON: Miles, could I jump in right here?

O'BRIEN: Go ahead, senator.

HENDON: Well, I agree with the gentleman that just spoke prior when he
said how you have to have 5 pounds of cocaine to get five years, but you
have to have...

MURDOCK: A pound of cocaine.

HENDON: Beg your pardon.

MURDOCK: It's 1 pound of cocaine and 220 pounds of marijuana.

HENDON: One pound of cocaine, right, 250 (sic) pounds of marijuana. But
yet, with crack, it's been a little $5 rock. So ecstasy gives us the
opportunity to take a look at all of these sentencings so that we can
have fair sentencings for all -- all people. And that's all we want to
achieve.

O'BRIEN: All right, gentlemen...

(CROSSTALK)

... gentlemen, we'll continue the discussion. We're not done. We have to
take a break, though, pay a little rent. We'll be back in just a
minute, more TALKBACK LIVE, more talk about ecstasy. Stay with us.

A study done by the University of Michigan showed that in 1998 3.5
percent of high-school seniors had used ecstasy within the past year.
By 2000, that number was 8 percent.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: All right, welcome back to TALKBACK LIVE. During the break, we
had an interesting comment about all this tough law-and-order type talk
that we heard from Senator Hendon. It comes from Fred.

Fred, go ahead and basically restate what you said.

FRED: I'd like to know why the legislatures have a knee-jerk reaction
when each time we have a problem in this country, they pass laws and
regulations so that they look better instead of taking that money and
putting it into programs of education where it will do a lot better.

Frankly speaking, is that-- having these people locked up and being put
in jail, you have to look at the demographics of who you're looking up.
Are you going to be locking up kids or are you going to be locking up
hardened criminals? Then if that's the case, I suggest you better build
a lot of prisons.

HENDON: Well, I agree with you -- I agree with you 100 percent, and
that's one reason why the black caucus supported the legislation. We
have been fighting for treatment, we have been fighting for education in
Illinois for quite some time. We can't get it. The conservative
Republicans that run the Senate will not allow us to have the treatment
programs that we need, so we're feeling like OK, once they see young
white youth being locked up and incarcerated like cattle, then maybe
they'll take a second look at it. So I agree with you 100 percent.

O'BRIEN: Senator, I've got to say...

(CROSSTALK)

Senator, I've got to say I do have a problem with your logic on two
wrongs making a right here, and sending, you know, children as
essentially sacrificial lambs to prove your point. Do you think -- are
you comfortable with that?

HENDON: Yeah, I'm very comfortable with it, because if you look at
what's going on in my community, young black youth are filling up the
prisons like crazy. And your audience members has a point. In
Illinois, we're trying to build our way out of it. You can't build your
way out of it. But until white America sees that their children are
being incarcerated like this and treated like animals and stuck with --
with sentences where they can never get a job -- we've been trying to
get these expungements. We can't get expungements.

But every time we bring it up in Illinois -- and I can't speak for the
rest of the country -- they say comments like, well, those little black
kids, they deserve it. Well, those little black kids, it's just some
black kids running around. Well, now, it's going to be white youth
being put in jail at 14 and 15, and I think America will take a second
look at what they're doing.

MURDOCK: I think rather -- I think rather than lock up more young people
as the state senator is saying -- I'm very sympathetic to the point he
raises about young black people being locked up in jail. I would simply
say that if these are nonviolent offenders, they ought to be let go at
noon today and set free. We've locked up way too many people for
victimless crimes.

What I find very strange is the disparity in which we treat risky
behaviors, as the gentleman from Great Britain pointed out. Earlier this
year, the NASCAR driver -- NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt drove into a
brick wall at 180 miles an hour and killed himself. It left his wife
widowed, his four kids fatherless. That's perfectly legal, and yet if
you were at home watching on television and you were stoned, you were
the law-breaker. That makes absolutely no sense.

And obviously, we don't lose a lot of people in NASCAR races. Maybe
three or four a year. But still, the logic whereby someone can do that
legally, but if you're high at home watching, you're the one breaking
the law is just an example of the absolute absurdity of this entire war
on drugs effort.

O'BRIEN: All right, we need to...

VAN DEVENTER: I've got to disagree with that.

O'BRIEN: Go ahead real quickly, and then we've got to get a phone call
in. Go ahead.

VAN DEVENTER: Yeah. I just think that the difference there is that the
NASCAR driver was completely sober when he did that. He made a
conscious decision to race that car. When you're an addict, you don't
make any decisions for yourself: The drug is making all the decisions
for you.

I also want to say I completely agree with the senator that the prison
system that we have now, especially with drug offenders, is useless, but
the solution isn't to let everybody go or to lenient sentencing, is to
turn our prisons into something better than they are now, which is just
holding pens.

(CROSSTALK)

MURDOCK: ... point to this as addiction. I don't think everyone who
uses a drug is an addict. Some people use it occasionally. Some people
may use ecstasy on New Year's Eve, and then you have some people who are
really addicted and have a serious problem.

Not everyone who has a drink at happy hour is an alcoholic...

(CROSSTALK)

VAN DEVENTER: Right, that's why -- that's why alcohol...

(CROSSTALK)

O'BRIEN: Time to get a phone call in. Let me get the phone call in.

MURDOCK: ... and then we also have people who use drugs and some who are
addicts.

O'BRIEN: Matt is on the line. Matt, go ahead.

MATT: Hi. Yeah, I'm a 19-year-old college student, and I have many,
many friends that have done ecstasy. And from the first time that
they've done it, I've just noticed that they have a stupor in their eyes
and they can't hold normal conversations. They're just -- there's
something slow with them. And I just think it's a waste of time that
we're locking those kinds of people up when the only way that we can
help them is to treat them and to get the truth out about these things
instead of completely blowing them out of the water or dead in the
water. We just need to tell the straight truth about what's going on.

HENDON: I -- I agree...

O'BRIEN: I've got to -- we have to take a break. But just briefly,
there was open laughter here by Mike when you said that. Go ahead,
Mike.

MIKE: I was actually laughing at the senator and this guy who is 19
years old and probably never been anywhere in the world but college.
People need to take -- take a look at Atlanta. Their city council came
and went to the promoters, and they did their homework. They're fixing
the problem within without putting people in jail. And the senator is
right: It's a very racist thing to drop people in jail for crack.

O'BRIEN: All right. Taking a break. We'll be back with more in just a
minute. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: All right. We don't have much time. Once again, we have
talked and talked and talked, but Matt has a great closing thought.

MATT: Ecstasy is a great thing but not achieved by a drug.

O'BRIEN: All right, Matt, we appreciate that. We'll applaud that point.

We are out of time. I'm Miles O'Brien, on behalf of Bobbie Battista.
Thanks to all of our guests, thanks to our wonderful audience, thanks to
those of you at home who tuned in. Join us again tomorrow, 3:00 p.m.
Eastern for another edition of TALKBACK LIVE.