THE 'HUG DRUG' DANGER

I still remember the panic in the mother's voice.

Her daughter, who was a senior in high school, had been acting strangely --
agitated at times, lethargic at times, secretive, edgy, forgetful.

After some emotional confrontations, the mom discovered her daughter was
taking a drug called "ecstasy." The girl swore it was harmless; lots of
kids used the "hug drug." But the teenager was clearly not the same. Her
grades were getting as ragged as she was. "What is this stuff?" the
desperate mother pleaded.

And what could she do now? That was more than 10 years ago. Ecstasy, a
so-called designer drug, had started making the scene in suburban schools.

The scientific name is methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) but kids called
it "E," "X," "Adam," "XTC," or the "hug drug." At the time, it was
considered by teens to be the most benign drug. "Nice kids" like the
caller's daughter took it. It lowered inhibitions, produced feelings of
euphoria and bursts of stamina. It was cheap for middle-class kids -- $7 to
$30 a pill. Often in pastel blue and pink, it looked almost cute. Though
the Drug Enforcement Administration banned it as a Schedule I drug in 1985,
meaning it was as dangerous as heroin, ecstasy persisted in the kid drug scene.

It made socially awkward youngsters feel in the groove.

Though the fad ebbed some during the last decade, just like fashion and
music trends in the teen world, it has now resurged. There's a new wave
from posh Westchester County to Kansas City to hip and happening San
Francisco. The resurgence seems sparked by the fad of "rave" parties, where
young people dance the night away on an ecstasy high. Rave parties are the
drug equivalent of a chat room, with the false intimacy of being in a group
but still separate, behind a veil of chemical bravado. Some 8 percent of
high school seniors reported using ecstasy in 2000. Customs agents seized
9.3 million pills in 2000, compared to 400,000 in 1997. What the young
users don't understand is that ecstasy can cause brain damage.

A recent federal study showed chronic use of MDMA harms neurons that
regulate memory.

And ecstasy can kill. More than 100 have died after taking the drug at rave
parties from heat stroke.

Because ecstasy is part psychedelic, part amphetamine, it causes body
temperature to rise. A 16-year-old Denver girl died in February after
taking a pill with a lucky clover leaf design that friends had given her
for her birthday.

Suddenly dehydrated, she drank three gallons of water.

The resulting sodium depletion triggered swelling of the brain that put her
into a coma. She never regained consciousness. DEA administrator Donnie
Marshall said last week on a visit to Dallas that one of his goals is to
get the word out to parents to be wary about the dangers of ecstasy.

A native Texan with three children of his own, Mr. Marshall said that he is
troubled by the new wave of ecstasy use. Parents should even be suspicious
of dance parties that are billed in fliers as "alcohol free," he said,
because often that is an insidious cover for ecstasy use. Besides the
harmful physical repercussions of "rolling" in ecstasy, Mr. Marshall said,
teens frequenting the dance party scene are prey for sexual predators,
strangers who use date-rape drugs to take advantage of young girls, and
scalpers who sell bottles of water for $10 to desperately dehydrated
youngsters. Parents should be on the lookout for telltale paraphernalia
like pacifiers and Blow Pops, which help alleviate the clenched jaw
pressure that is another ecstasy side effect, the DEA chief advised.

He said chemical lightsticks are also a popular accompaniment for the
dancers on a roll. So is Vicks Vaporub, which is rubbed inside painters'
masks or blown through straws to enhance the high. The DEA is cracking down
on the Russian and Israeli drug dealers who are shipping in thousands of
the pills from the Netherlands, Mr. Marshall said, but it would help if
more parents and teenagers understood the dangers. Some kids are wising up.
As Michael Landauer pointed out in his Arlington Morning News column,
students at Martin High School recently went to educators and asked for
help combating the drug, which was captivating many of their friends.

As a result, special sessions on the dangers of ecstasy were held for
students and parents.

By the time they get through college, many students realize that "the hug
drug" is not as benign as they thought. Hence the adage, "Freshmen love it,
sophomores like it, juniors are ambivalent and seniors are afraid of it."
The problem is that in the new wave of use, increasing numbers of
eighth-graders are snapping up the pink and blue pills.

Prompted by the recent alarms about ecstasy, I checked to see what had
happened to the daughter of the woman who called me. She got help and went
on to graduate from college and get married.

Lucky for her, her mother was paying attention.

Rena Pederson is editor of The Dallas Morning News editorial page. Her
e-mail address is rpederson@dallasnews.com.