'ECSTASY' CAUSES ANYTHING BUT

WASHINGTON -- "Ecstasy" --- a stimulant that can cause brain damage -- is
skyrocketing in popularity.

Ecstasy has the properties of amphetamines along with psychedelic effects
that make users feel peaceful. Different recipes are used for ecstasy, all
of which can produce serious harm.

The scientific name of the substance is long and cumbersome; its acronym is
MDMA. The drug is synthetic, meaning it isn't found in nature.

Ecstasy is sometimes called "Adam," "X," "X-TC," "Stacy," "Clarity,"
"Essence," "Lover's Speed," "Eve," or "e." It is usually taken by mouth in
tablet, capsule or powder form, but it also may be smoked, snorted or injected.

Ecstasy costs $25 to $40 per pill. Sometimes users combine MDMA with
marijuana or other "club drugs" to counteract jitteriness. MDMA may remain
in the body up to 24 hours although effects usually last three to six hours.

MDMA generally reduces inhibitions and creates a sense of euphoria, but it
also can evoke anxiety and paranoia. Heavier doses generate depression,
irrationality, and psychosis.

Side effects include hypothermia, vomiting, blurred vision, chills,
faintness, sweating, tremors, loss of control over body movements,
insomnia, convulsions, muscle tension, rapid eye movement and teeth
clenching. Individuals with heart problems, high blood pressure or epilepsy
have increased risk of adverse reactions.

Ecstasy destroys serotonin-producing neurons and reduces serotonin, a
neurotransmitter involved in controlling mood, sleep, pain, sexual activity
and violent behavior.

Unfortunately, little is known about the long-term consequences of
sustained use. A study, published in the British medical journal the Lancet
and supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National
Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, examined serotonin receptors to
determine whether prolonged, regular use of ecstasy can produce
irreversible damage to neurons.

Some of today's heavy users may be burdened with chronic depression later
in life. A study at Johns Hopkins University, conducted on primates,
confirmed that MDMA causes long-lasting damage to areas of the brain
critical for thought and memory.

"I am very worried about ecstasy," said Dr. Jan Walburg, director of the
Jellinek Clinic in the Netherlands. "We must be wary of a drug that has the
potential of causing long-term brain damage, and this one does. With our
tolerant attitudes, we just didn't want to see the danger here until
ecstasy had spread everywhere like a virus."

NIDA Director Dr. Alan Leshner said, "At the very least, people who take
MDMA -- even just a few times -- are risking long-term, perhaps permanent
problems with learning and memory."

The body quickly builds up tolerance to MDMA, so the drug is said to have a
"honeymoon high" -- after which users take more to recapture the initial
sensation. A British study demonstrated that use during pregnancy can cause
birth defects.

Between 1997 and 1998, emergency room mentions of MDMA nearly doubled. In
1999, 8 percent of 12th-graders used MDMA at least once -- up 38 percent
from the previous year. Use escalated in the 1990s among college students
and young adults, particularly those who participate in "raves" --
all-night dance parties held in fields or abandoned warehouses.

Raves provide open spaces for dancing amid psychedelic lights, video, smoke
or fire. At such clubs, kids have died of overheating as a result of MDMA,
which increases heart rate, blood pressure and body temperature.

Raves typically cost $20 per ticket, draw 6,000 to 25,000 people and bring
organizers $100,000 per night. Attendees may take ecstasy -- the "hug-drug"
- -- to dance all night and "feel close" to friends.

Raves have become weigh stations for large purchases of ecstasy that are
transported to college campuses, suburban high schools and rural areas of
the country.

Most MDMA in the United States comes from the Netherlands, Luxembourg and
Belgium. Dutch police estimate that the average lab there produces 80,000
tablets a day at less than the equivalent of about 50 cents each. The
tablets are the size of Advil and stamped with logos like Playboy bunnies,
lightning bolts or signs of the Zodiac.

U.S. Customs seized 3.5 million ecstasy tablets in fiscal year 1999, which
ended Sept. 30, more than four times the amount in 1998. Much MDMA is
bought by young American tourists financing summer vacations by smuggling
home a few hundred tablets.

Some 150 Dutch "Smart Shops," which feature drug paraphernalia, help
foreigners sneak ecstasy home by selling containers for Faberge shaving
gel, deodorant sprays, Campbell's soup, or Heineken beer with secret
compartments for drugs. Organized crime increasingly is becoming involved
with MDMA.

Dr. Ernst Buning, formerly with the Amsterdam Municipal Health Service,
argues: "There is no simple solution to the drug problem. No one nation --
not the U.S., not England -- has the answer. Together, we must warn young
people about the threat ecstasy poses to their health and well-being.