THE PRICE OF ECSTASY

The Popular Rave Drug Isn't As Harmless As Our Law-makers Seem To Think

Ecstasy has killed, but our courts may not be giving the drug the respect
it deserves.

The Crown tried and failed last week to get jail time for Robert Bedford,
who sold raver Jaimie Britten two of the four ecstasy pills that killed him.

"It's not like cocaine or heroin; it's not in the same category," Chief
Justice Constance Glube said before a three-judge appeal panel decided to
let Bedford's one-year conditional sentence stand.

But maybe it should be.

Diverse scientific information about ecstasy makes it difficult to assess
risks involved in taking the pills.

"A lot of people think that because it was used by psychiatrists back in
the early '80s in the United States, it's a harmless, benign drug, and that
is totally untrue," Cpl. Scott Rintoul, an RCMP drug expert who testified
at Bedford's sentencing, said in an interview.

In rare cases, ecstasy can kill users by increasing their body temperature,
said Dr. Stephen Kish of Toronto's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.
Hyperthermia may lead to heart failure, liver and kidney damage, and brain
and retinal hemorrhage, said Kish, a human-brain neuro-chemist.

"In Toronto, our coroner has described at least three cases of individuals
who have died, come to autopsy - ecstasy was the only drug found in the
system," he said.

Classified as a Schedule 3 drug under the Controlled Drugs and Substances
Act, judges are limited to handing out 10-year prison sentences for
trafficking in ecstasy.

By comparison, trafficking in Schedule 1 and 2 drugs, such as cocaine or
heroin, can net offenders life in prison.

"You may see Parliament, in another year from now, all of a sudden move
methamphetamine and ecstasy to Schedule 1," said Rintoul, adding they're
now both classified that way in the U.S.

It's not hard to see why many users have a difficult time judging ecstasy
as harmful. It releases a chemical in your brain called serotonin that
causes a warm and fuzzy high where people feel marvellously close to one
another.

But it comes with a hangover.

"When you start coming down from the high, instead of feeling close to
others you will feel rather irritable, you don't want to associate with
your friends and you'll have difficulty concentrating," said Kish. "You'll
be rather depressed."

Serotonin is released constantly in your brain at low levels to maintain
normal mood and regulate temperature.

An examination of a dead 26-year-old chronic ecstasy user found drastically
low serotonin level in his brain.

Now scientists are investigating whether the drug, which has been shown to
cause memory impairment, can cause permanent brain damage.

A bleak future may await today's ravers who gobble ecstasy every weekend.

Kish worries we could be raising a generation of future "grumpy, old,
depressed men and women," who, with permanently depleted serotonin levels,
may suffer from sleep disorders, temperature regulation problems and
permanent depression.

"That has not, in my opinion, been established yet," he said. "But there's
enough evidence out there to suggest that this might well be the case."