ECSTASY'S POPULARITY BRINGS NEW ATTENTION

The 'Hug Drug' / Use Rises In The U.S.

WASHINGTON - Two years ago, the amount of the illegal drug ecstasy entering
the United States was worrisome, but not a major concern for federal law
enforcement. With most attention focused on cocaine and heroin coming in
from South America, searching well-dressed travelers on flights from Paris
and Am-sterdam for aspirin-sized ecstasy tablets was not a high priority.

Although only about 8 percent of high school seniors reported having tried
it in 1999, ecstasy is the only illegal drug for which a significant usage
increase was detected last year.

In the past seven months, nearly 8 million pills have been seized by the
U.S. Customs Service and the Drug Enforcement Administration, 20 times the
number seized in all of 1998.

Amid nationwide alarm, two congressional hearings have been held this
summer on ecstasy, and bills have been introduced in both houses to
increase penalties for trafficking and possession. On Monday, the Drug
Enforcement Administration began a three-day conference on ecstasy attended
by more than 300 U.S. and international law enforcement officials and drug
abuse prevention experts.

First developed in Germany in 1912, ecstasy is different from other drugs
in the ways it is produced, trafficked and used, challenging traditional
notions of how to deal with the smuggling and use of it. It has pushed law
enforcement into new and unfamiliar areas.

"It's changed our institutional mindset," said Commissioner Raymond Kelly
of the Customs Service. "We were kind of southern-focused, and now we've
had to extend that focus to Europe. " In addition to moving personnel and
changing techniques - including new scrutiny of passengers on major
European airlines - the Customs Service has been forced to put its sniffer
dogs on an ecstasy crash course.

Unlike cocaine and heroin, the moodenhancing ecstasy doesn't originate in
remote jungles or highlands. Its components can't be grown in back yards or
easily manufactured in basements. At least 80 percent of all the ecstasy in
the world comes from clandestine urban laboratories in just one country,
the Netherlands. Most of the chemicals used to make it are controlled under
international law, but travel easily to Amsterdam and The Hague from
eastern Europe across the newly borderless European Union.

Most of the ecstasy entering the United States is trafficked by what drug
enforcement officials call "Israeli organized crime," a nationality not
previously associated with the drug underworld. Its chieftains are
well-traveled, in their twenties, speak multiple languages and carry more
than one passport. Much of their business is conducted via cell phones and
computers that allow them to track shipments and distribution on a
minute-by-minute basis.

Those caught bringing ecstasy into the United States from Europe are an
unlikely array of couriers who range from New York Hasidic Jew% to Los
Angeles strippers to middle-class Texas families.

For smuggling purposes, ecstasy is easy to hide and has an astronomical
profit margin. A single pill purchased for 50 cents in Amsterdam can sell
for as much as $50 at 11 rave" dance parties throughout the United States.

Still rarely sold on the street, ecstasy is most freely available in the
cavernous warehouses and clubs where thousands of young people gather for
all-night dancing to electronically produced "techno" music.

"It's not a very visible drug," said Inspector Cathy Lanier, who heads the
Metropolitan Police's major narcotics branch in Washington. "It's
concentrated down in the nightclubs, behind closed doors."

The police in Washington are concentrating their efforts on interdicting
large quantities of ecstasy reaching the area. Tens of thousands of pills
have been seized at Dulles International Airport this year on flights from
Europe; a bust on a train from New York last year netted 10,000 tablets.

Known scientifically as 3-4 methylenedioxymethamphetamine, or MDMA, ecstasy
is a ubiquitous subject on the Internet. On sites where erratically
scheduled raves are advertised, visitors chat ceaselessly about its
availability and purity, and frequently bemoan the fact that ever-younger
"kids" are using it.

Scientific articles are posted warning of its dangers or attempting to
disprove them. The White House Drug Control Policy Office, producer of
slick television and billboard campaigns to warn youths and their parents
about drug use, does almost all its anti-ecstasy proselytizing on its
www.freevibe.com Web site and a site devoted to parent education.

Called the "hug drug, " ecstasy triggers a chemical reaction in the brain
that lowers inhibitions and engenders feelings of wellbeing and closeness
to others. There are few reports of LSD-like bad trips, and virtually no
violence associated with its use.

Ecstasy wasn't even illegal in the United States until 1985.

The drug's immediate side effects include increased heart rate and blood
pressure, dehydration, overheating, teeth-grinding and jaw-clenching.
Emergency room admissions associated with its use have more than doubled in
the past two years, but only a relative handful of deaths have been
attributed to ecstasy.

But with major new funding for government and private research into its
effects, there is now "pretty good evidence that it probably causes
permanent damage to a portion" of the brain, said David McDowell, assistant
professor of clinical psychiatry and head of the Substance Treatment and
Research Service at Columbia University.

The chemicals in ecstasy impair the function and long-term production of
serotonin, a brain chemical that keeps people on an even emotional and
cognitive keel and whose absence can lead to major psychological problems,
Mr. McDowell said. Other recent studies have indicated possible long-term
memory loss and cognitive impairment.

There have been signs recently that more traditional smuggling networks and
routes are moving into the lucrative ecstasy trade. In February, police in
Arizona arrested Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano, a former New York
organized crime hit man turned federally protected witness, and charged him
with involvement in an ecstasy smuggling ring.

But Israelis have been involved in nearly all major busts so far, according
to Customs Service and drug enforcement officials.

Among recent arrests:

* Last Wednesday, federal authorities announced their largest-ever seizure
of ecstasy, approximately 2.1 million tablets produced in the Netherlands,
on a flight from Paris at Los Angeles International Airport. Although
several arrests were made, the man identified by the Customs Service as the
head of the "drug importation ring," Tamer Adel Ibrahim, an Israeli,
remained at large.

* Also on Wednesday, two Israeli nationals, a Canadian and an American were
arrested and charged with bringing 100,000 pills into New York state from
Canada, traveling across the St. Lawrence River.