ECSTASY? ANYTHING BUT

Only a few weeks after reports surfaced that a new and far more potent form of heroin was responsible for a series of drug overdoses in Milwaukee, another dangerous drug has also established a beachhead here. Law enforcement officials are bracing for a local epidemic of the use of Ecstasy, the synthetic, feel-good, club drug that many young people mistakenly believe is harmless.

Ecstasy is far from benign: Studies have shown that the psychoactive stimulant and hallucinogen is a neurotoxin that can cause permanent brain damage. In 1999, a total of five Ecstasy tablets were seized by the Milwaukee County Drug Enforcement Unit. So far this year, more than 1,400 tablets have been seized and, according to District Attorney E. Michael McCann, "we think we are getting only a fraction of what is out there."

Even more disturbing, investigators with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration suspect that 40,000 Ecstasy tablets recently seized in New York were made here. One local DEA official points out that the drug is showing up at alcohol-free parties, where many parents mistakenly feel their children are safe.

The operative word is "parents." Mothers and fathers who feel they have little say over what their children do are selling themselves and their children short. Kids are never too young or too old to be informed of and even lectured to about the very real dangers of drugs.