PARTY-DRUG SCENE: 'E' TRADE SPREADS LARGELY UNCHECKED

Jackie was wearing light-blue tennis shoes with pink and mint-green
stripes when she walked into the private rave dubbed "the Lemon
Party." Once inside, she reached into her baggy jeans and took out a
white, aspirin-size tablet pressed with the word "E-mail."

The "E" is for Ecstasy, the most popular of the "club drugs" used in
the dance culture known as rave. From weekly private parties in the
suburbs of New Jersey to the all-night dance clubs in cities like
Orlando and L.A., thousands of young, mostly white, upper-middle-class
kids are succumbing to the promise of high-energy excess.

Even as overall drug use has declined among teens in the past few
years, this synthetic drug that ravers commonly call "E" or "X" has
been attracting more users, according to the National Institute on
Drug Abuse (NIDA).

"It seems to be kind of an accepted drug to use at this point in time
among teens," says Paul Jacquith, the program director of the
Manhasset Day Treatment Center in New York's Long Island. "There are
other drugs that are seen as, if you use them, you're out of control.
But Ecstasy has that cachet to it: that it's OK to use as long as it's
at a rave."

At the Lemon Party, Jackie, a recent college graduate who asked that
her last name not be used, swallowed the pill with a swig of water
soon after she walked in the door.

"Being on Ecstasy is literally ecstasy," she explains. "The music is
amazing on E, too. You can feel it in your body, the beat and the bass
- - everything is just heightened, all sensations." Each pill -
manufactured for as little as 50 cents - usually costs from $15 to
$20.

Bottled water and lollipops

Hundreds of other teens, many wearing fluorescent-colored visors with
twinkling rainbow lights, were already dancing on the floor of the
cavernous converted theater. The yellow- and silver-foil streamers
hanging from the ceiling were jiggling from the steady, pounding beats
of drum and bass music.

Bottles of water were everywhere, but not a single bottle of
beer.

Alcohol is rarely, if ever, to be found at a rave.

Instead, dancers seeking the stimulation and mood-altering effects of
Ecstasy drink a lot of water, in part to keep their bodies from
overheating or dehydrating after hours of constant dancing. Ravers on
E often suck pacifiers or lollipops to keep their jaw from
involuntarily clenching.

In addition to being able to dance until daylight, users say the drug
makes them feel euphoric and amorous.

But new studies warn that the "hug drug," officially known as 3,4
methylenedioxy-methamphetamine (MDMA), can also lead to brain damage
and sometimes even death. Ecstasy is classified as a Schedule 1 drug,
like heroin.

Around the country, state officials say autopsies show young people at
raves are dying from both the direct effects of overdosing as well as
the indirect effects of dehydration. In Florida, at least 72 people
have died from taking Ecstasy and other "club drugs."

"Ecstasy is such a problem in our state," says Brian Collier, regional
director for the Florida chapter of Phoenix House, an international
drug-rehabilitation organization. "There is such a lack of public
awareness about its dangers." Mr. Collier plans to raise the issue
with Gov. Jeb Bush at a town hall meeting in St. Petersburg next month.

Ecstasy has not been a major focus of the drug war in recent years.
But with more young people starting to use it, law-enforcement
agencies are beginning to focus more resources to fight its sale and
distribution.

The US Customs Service has already seized some 4 million tablets this
year - up from 3.5 million in 1999 and 750,000 in 1998. New York's
airports are considered the primary hub for the drug, which is
smuggled in from Europe. Miami and Orlando, Fla., are also main entry
points.

There are signs that organized crime is also taking an interest in
Ecstasy. In February, for example, federal agents arrested former New
York mob hit man Sammy "Bull" Gravano, accusing him of operating an
Ecstasy ring in Arizona.

One of the reasons law-enforcement officials have only recently begun
focusing their energies on Ecstasy is that it has for the most part
been confined to the underground culture of private parties and clubs
for wealthy kids.

Unlike cocaine or heroin, the E trade has not been accompanied by
theft and violence by addicts desperate to feed their habit.

Rave culture

Rave culture evolved in the dance club scene in Britain in the late
1980s, combining the use of Ecstasy with "house" music, a steady-beat
music from the Chicago underground. According to Mireille Silcott,
author of "Rave America," one of the first books on the culture, rave
was morphing into different shapes in various cities around the US by
the early 1990s.

"There are great regional differences in terms of what's done at a
rave, the different styles of clothing, the different styles of drug
taking," she says.

In the Midwest, for example, raves are dark, and black clothing is the
norm.

In Los Angeles, a bubbly "kiddy" aesthetic prevails, and teens wear
fluorescent-colored clothes, suck pacifiers, and even sport huge white
Mickey Mouse mascot gloves. In Orlando, Ms. Silcott says, hip-hop and
rave culture intermingle. In New York, every style prevails.

The one constant: the small, white tablets that can be found in almost
all of these flamboyant dances.

After the parties end, however, experts point out that the euphoria
and intensity of the drug can leave a raver sad and depressed.

Days after her night at the Lemon Party, Jackie's mood was down. "I
loved it, but as soon as I felt myself coming down, it was terribly
depressing," she says. "Your sober state is so much different, and
you've just come from the most incredible high, and it's a major letdown."