ECSTASY ALLURE GROWS DESPITE HEALTH RISKS

Popularity Among Youths Concerns Anti-Drug Groups

DENVER ­ Brittney Chambers' friends thought they could give her a safe high
for her 16th birthday, presenting the girl with a green "ecstasy" pill
shaped like a four-leaf clover.

But that myth was shattered when Brittney died Feb. 2 after drinking too
much water to offset side effects from the popular party drug. And the
message was driven home further three days after a memorial service for
Brittney, when a 15-year-old girl was hospitalized after taking three
ecstasy pills that she bought at a dance club.

Experts across the country point to the two Denver-area cases as proof that
while ecstasy's popularity is soaring among youths who see it as an
innocent drug, it can be nothing short of lethal.

"Using ecstasy is like playing Russian roulette," said Dr. H. Westley
Clark, director for the federal Center for Substance Abuse Treatment in
Rockville, Md. "It may be that only two out of 100 people are going to die,
but is ecstasy so important to you that you want to be one of those two?"

The second girl, whose name was not disclosed, was hospitalized for two
days after being admitted in a state of toxic delirium. Doctors said she
had taken the drug on several occasions without problems.

"This drug has a very warm, fuzzy public relations image associated with
it," said Dr. Ken Kulig, a toxicologist at Littleton Adventist Hospital,
where the second girl was treated. "But I hope this case and the Brittney
Chambers case will alert teens in this area that this is a very bad thing
to do. This is a dangerous, dangerous drug."

Ecstasy ­ also called "E," "X," "Adam" and "XTC" ­ is chemically known as
methylenedioxymethamphetamine, or MDMA. It was first synthesized and
patented by a German pharmaceutical company in the early 1900s but was not
outlawed in the United States until 1985.

Popular at raves

Described by Dr. Kulig as a chemical hybrid between methamphetamine and the
hallucinogen mescaline, it is popular with devotees of so-called rave
clubs, where users find it provides a sense of euphoria and energy to keep
them dancing for hours. A typical dose is one pill.

An Internet posting from an ecstasy user identified as "angel_X" offers
this representative narrative: "When I get up to walk, I feel like I'm
flying, totally weightless. ... I lovE getting hugs and 'shaking hands,'
and I feel so warm and loving."

Several measures indicate that the popularity of ecstasy has spread far
beyond the narrow demographic of dance-club clientele.

The U.S. Customs Service confiscated 400,000 doses of ecstasy entering the
country in fiscal 1997; by contrast, it intercepted 9.3 million doses in
fiscal 2000, customs spokesman Dean Boyd said.

The Drug Enforcement Administration confiscated more than 1,775,000 doses
of ecstasy nationwide last year, compared with 26,111 in 1997, said Dennis
Follett, a spokesman for the DEA's Denver office.

Police say the increased seizures of the drug signal wider use, and that's
backed up by an annual survey of 45,000 secondary school students released
in December by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. The
study showed a 38 percent increase from the previous year in the number of
12th-graders who have used ecstasy. It was the largest one-year increase
among high school seniors for any drug in the 26-year history of the study.

"It's perceived as harmless and non-addictive, which is contrary to the
facts," Mr. Follett said. "And when there's a perception that there's no
risk, young adults are more likely to use this substance."

Law-enforcement officials say they are responding to the drug's increased
popularity by targeting the suppliers.

The Customs Service created an ecstasy task force last March to combat its
influx, primarily from the Netherlands and Belgium. Customs has about 75
dogs trained to detect the drug at entry points around the country and
plans to add more this year.

"We can only do so much as law enforcement," said Mr. Boyd, the customs
spokesman. "We can plug holes in the dike, but there's a lot of people out
there who are convinced this is a harmless drug, the neatest thing since
sliced bread. But the facts tell us otherwise."

Efforts are under way to get that message out. The Partnership for a
Drug-Free America, in conjunction with the Office of National Drug Control
Policy, launched a federally funded radio advertising campaign Jan. 15,
urging parents to educate themselves about ecstasy and to talk to their
children about the drug's dangers.

Deaths tied directly to ecstasy are rare. The best statistics come from the
federal Drug Abuse Warning Network, or DAWN, and cover 40 metro areas
nationwide. Because they are based on a wide range of reporting policies,
the published numbers are not definitive.

The DAWN report for December 2000 showed nine ecstasy deaths in 1998, the
last year for which numbers were available. Dr. Clark said 27 deaths have
been tied to ecstasy from 1994 through 1998.

The dangers of ecstasy cited by the National Institute on Drug Abuse range
from short-term dehydration, hypothermia and high blood pressure to
long-term problems such as brain and liver damage.

Measures taken to combat its adverse health effects can backfire fatally,
as happened with Brittney Chambers.

Some users drink more fluids to counter dehydration, but that can also be
dangerous because the drug releases an anti-diuretic hormone that impedes
the body's natural secretion of fluids.

Brittney's brother told authorities that she drank 3 gallons of water
within 45 minutes. Boulder County coroner John Meyer said that diluted the
sodium ions in her blood and triggered swelling in her brain, resulting in
a coma from which she never awoke.

Doctors said the other Colorado girl also showed a dangerously low level of
blood sodium upon arrival at the hospital.

"The mechanism is the same," Dr. Kulig said. "The serum sodium in both
young ladies was excessively low, and that is a life-threatening event. One
survived and the other did not."

Boulder County sheriff's Lt. Jim Smith, commander of an eight-agency county
drug task force, marveled that publicity surrounding Brittney's death did
little to avert a second incident.

Boulder authorities are prosecuting in juvenile court the four friends who
they say gave Brittney the fatal dose of ecstasy. A couple accused of
selling the drug to the girl's friends have been charged with several
felonies, including a sentence-enhancing count for selling the drug on a
school campus.

Police have accused a 15-year-old boy of selling the three pills to the
second girl. He turned himself in to police and was charged as juvenile
with one count of drug distribution.

In the Boulder coroner's comments after Brittney's death, he emphasized
that one of ecstasy's dangers is the unpredictability of the body's
response. He was echoed by Lt. Smith.

'No quality control'

"Your experience with it one day might not be the same the next," he said.
"And what is for certain with this drug is that there is absolutely no
quality control. Most people that get this drug have no idea what they're
taking, or what it has been cut with. You're just kind of banking the
quality of your high on what someone wants to sell you to make money."