TWO FACES OF ECSTASY

Feb. 4, 2001 - Ecstasy is everywhere - from nightclubs to
schoolhouses to all-night raves.

Its dangers hit home last week when a girl celebrating her 16th
birthday in Boulder lapsed into a coma after taking Ecstasy purchased
at Monarch High School.

We suspect Ecstasy is at epidemic proportions, but statistics are sketchy.

While only 27 U.S. deaths were reported between 1994 and 1998,
Colorado and several other states don't count deaths from Ecstasy,
also known as MDMA, XTC, X or methylenedioxymethamphetamine. National
counts of emergency room cases, also incomplete, rose more than
tenfold in five years, from 250 in 1994 to 2,850 in 1999.

And seizures by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration skyrocketed
from 196 dosage units in 1993, to 143,600 in 1998, to 216,300 in just
the first half of 1999.

Yet while many officials say the drug is new, it isn't. And it is
past time authorities track the medical and social cost of Ecstasy,
just as they do with cocaine and other drugs.

Ecstasy first was synthesized in 1914 by E. Merck. It was largely
ignored until 1970, when some psychiatrists began using it on
patients.

Ironically, the drug proved beneficial until 1985, when the DEA
banned it. Since then, the bastardized street version has proven
deadly to hundreds.

During 15 years of legal use, Ecstasy was manufactured medically and
produced such positive effects that psychiatrists from Harvard to
Santa Fe testified to try to keep the drug medically available.

With one or two doses, patients had improved attitudes, mood,
self-confidence and acceptance, while defenses dropped and abuse of
substances lessened. Some doctors saw unprecedented progress with
schizophrenic patients.

Although a judge ruled that Ecstasy met all criteria of a Schedule
III drug - accepted medical use, accepted safety and less than high
abuse potential - the DEA rated Ecstasy in Schedule I, making it
almost impossible to obtain for medical use.

The ruling came soon after the drug began circulating in Dallas
discos. Yet only two deaths had been reported: A California
psychoanalyst with a heart condition took a double dose in 1983 and
suffered a heart attack, and an epileptic Dallas woman drowned after
a seizure in her bathtub.

Today's abuse of street Ecstasy is entirely different. While
psychiatric patients found success with a dose or two of the
pharmaceutical drug, party people are downing multiple doses of an
unknown concoction. While some MDMA usually is in street samples, so
are methamphetamine, DXM and the new PMA, which is extremely
dangerous and potentially lethal.

So while we lament the ban on therapeutic use of the real Ecstasy, we
also urge police, prosecutors and judges to clamp down hard on the
dangerous street variation. Nowadays, the person seeking ecstasy is
more likely to find agony instead.