ECSTASY USE INVADES LOCAL SCENE

When Rocky Gilio, a 37-year-old former Playgirl model, was arrested by
Pasco sheriff's deputies in March, everyone from vice detectives to
substance abuse counselors took notice.

An unopened package of nearly 5,000 Ecstasy pills worth $100,000 was
seized from the passenger seat of Gilio's car, making it the largest
Ecstasy bust in Pasco history.

Ecstasy, once a drug used almost exclusively by hard-partying college
students at all-night dances, is fast becoming the recreational drug
of choice for young people in Pasco, police and drug experts say.

Says Brittany Long, a 14-year-old sophomore at Land O'Lakes
High School: "You find the biggest goody-goody, and they're
doing Ecstasy."

Cynthia Ryalls-Clephane, a social worker at Schwettman Education
Center in New Port Richey, has witnessed a dramatic rise in the
popularity of the drug in Pasco. Five years ago, she said, one out of
every 10 kids she talked to had taken Ecstasy. Now it's about six out
of every 10.

"All of the kids we've talked to know what it is," said
Ryalls-Clephane, who works with youths who have been taken out of
schools because of behavior or substance abuse problems. "All of them
at one time or another have rolled. They save it for the weekend."

Still, school and police officials have only heard about the drug on
Pasco campuses. There has not been a single Ecstasy arrest in Pasco
schools, and officials maintain that teens still use far more
marijuana and alcohol.

Experts say parents should wonder if their children are taking Ecstasy
if they stay out all night or attend rave parties disguised as
"alcohol-free" events.

Some parents might be hesitant to talk to their kids about using
drugs, especially if they smoked pot or dropped acid in the 1960s,
Ryalls-Clephane said. Those parents often feel like hypocrites if they
preach an anti-drug message to their children, she said.

"Parents are really failing to supervise their kids," she
said.

Some adults aren't even aware Ecstasy exists, and others assume it is
a problem confined to urban areas.

"There's a tendency to believe raves and drugs are associated with big
cities," said James Hall, the executive director of Up Front, a
Miami-based non-profit group that researches drug trends. "But it's
all across America. You don't have to have a large event for people to
be involved with drugs."

People who have taken the drug -- users call it "rolling" -- say the
experience is a several-hour, intense journey. All five senses are
heightened; it's not uncommon for people to massage, touch and hug one
another while tripping to increase the pleasure. Some say the drug
releases their "true selves"; others say it makes them energetic and
happy.

"It's like you're in a dream," said a 22-year-old Land O'Lakes man,
who asked that his name not be printed. "It made me want to dance
around and stay up all night. I wish I hadn't done it -- it's too good
of a drug."

All-night drugstores

There is definitely a dark side to rolling, one that many users don't
know about or choose to ignore.

"People view it on the same grounds as marijuana," said Lt. Robert
Sullivan, who heads the vice unit at the Pasco County Sheriff's
Office. "True Ecstasy tabs have a quantity of heroin in the mixture
and methamphetamine (speed). Both are highly, highly addictive drugs."

Ecstasy isn't the only club drug. Ketamine (a cat tranquilizer
sometimes called special K), GHB and Rohypnol are also taken to
heighten the rave experience.

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, Ecstasy and other
club drugs can cause long-term damage to several parts of the brain,
in addition to a host of physical problems.

In Florida, about 230 people have died in the past three years after
taking club drugs, according to state officials. It is unknown how
many of those deaths are from taking only Ecstasy..

Heart attacks, strokes and dehydration have been the main causes of
death from taking club drugs.

Jake Costello Jr. of Homosassa was one of the Florida victims of club
drugs.

Costello died in 1998 at his sister's house in Homosassa the morning
after his 19th birthday. He had been partying at a Tampa rave club.
Hours before he died, Costello bragged to friends that he had taken
Ecstasy.

A medical examiner found amphetamines, marijuana and heroin in
Costello's body.

The teen's official cause of death was congestive heart failure, said
his mother, Colleen Costello.

After Costello's death and dozens of rave-related hospitalizations,
the Tampa City Council cracked down on rave parties.

"I had no idea what was going on in these clubs," Colleen Costello
said. "Anywhere that doesn't serve alcohol that's open all night is a
drugstore."

Costello said she had never heard of Ecstasy until her daughter called
her at 2 a.m. March 1, 1998, to tell her Jake was dying.

"She said, "Mom, he told me that he did Ecstasy,' " Costello said.
"These kids, they don't know what they're doing with their lives."

A recreational drug

Ecstasy was developed in 1912 by a German company as a potential
appetite suppressant. In the early 1980s, the drug was used by
psychiatrists as a therapeutic tool. It wasn't until 1985 that it was
outlawed and made a Class I substance, in the same category as heroin
or LSD.

By then, college-age people in Europe and India were taking the drug
to enhance rave parties, where thousands of people danced to loud
techno music.

Because many Ecstasy tablets are cut with speed, the drug not only
makes people feel good, but it makes them feel good for hours.

Soon, the rave scene became popular with suburban American teenagers,
and so did the drugs. Entire Web sites devoted to Ecstasy use offer
glowing testimonials to the drug, and some sites offer "Ecstasy
testing kits" for $25, so a user can find out how pure pills are.

In Pasco, Ecstasy is more recreational, often taken by kids on the
weekends, at house parties or at rave clubs in Ybor City.

The drug sells for $5 to $30, police and youth say, and it's likely
that many of the pills sold aren't even Ecstasy. Some are pure speed,
some contain heroin, others contain LSD and occasionally the pills are
just plain old aspirin.

Federal law enforcement is beefing up efforts to stop the demand for
the drug. Customs agents have trained more than a dozen dogs to sniff
out the substance, and the National Institute for Drug Abuse will
spend $54-million on Ecstasy research this year.

Federal authorities have noticed a rapid increase in Ecstasy seizures:
In fiscal 1999, U.S. Customs confiscated 3.5-million pills. So far
this year, officials have seized 4-million pills.

"We're seeing a rapid shift in users to a younger population," Hall,
of the drug research group, said. "We're observing that nationally and
particularly in Florida."

By way of Belgium

In 1995, vice detectives from the Pasco County Sheriff's Office
confiscated just two Ecstasy pills.

Compare that to the first three months of this year, when local
officials seized more than 5,000 pills.

All but 91 of those pills were taken during a single raid, when Rocky
Gilio was charged with trafficking in Ecstasy.

Customs agents in Washington, D.C., discovered the pills in a package,
and, after they placed a tracking device in the package, an undercover
Pasco deputy delivered it to Gilio at his New Port Richey home,
officials said. He never opened it, and the tracking device wasn't
activated, according to a police report.

Gilio didn't know the package contained Ecstasy, said his lawyer, J.
Larry Hart. "The police worked to make sure that package was in
Rocky's hands, and then they arrested him for having it under
circumstances where he never opened it," Hart said. "This is not your
typical Ecstasy case."

Gilio, who was released on $50,000 bail, has not been arraigned on the
charge, Hart said.

The return address on the confiscated package was in Belgium,
sheriff's officials said.

Most of the world's Ecstasy is manufactured in Belgium, the
Netherlands or Israel, said a fact sheet from the National Institute
on Drug Abuse.

Ecstasy looks like an aspirin and is often imprinted with a whimsical
image with a pop-culture reference: Bart Simpson. An Adidas symbol.
The Mitsubishi logo.

There are several Ecstasy-related props for users: pacifiers, glow
sticks and Vicks nasal inhalers. When high, a user's large muscle
groups become tight, and people tend to grind their teeth. Sucking on
pacifiers reduces the urge to grind.

Glow sticks provide a trippy light show in a darkened club or room,
and Vicks nasal inhalants bring on an intense blast of menthol smell
and taste.

'The best feeling'

It's not just the "bad kids" or the ones who already have substance
abuse problems who have tried Ecstasy.

Brittany Long, an honors student who also plays Powder Puff football,
said she has never tried the drug. But she knows plenty of people who
have. On a recent night, Long and three of her friends said it would
take them about five minutes to get their hands on a $15 hit of Ecstasy.

"Everyone's doing it," said 15-year-old Leslie Carreiro, who also said
she has never tried the drug. Leslie and Brittany and their friends
say they are afraid of the drug and how it could seriously harm people
they love. As the girls sat and fidgeted with a stack of Seventeen
magazines, they talked about how teens -- especially young girls --
feel pressure to use the drug.

Most kids don't think taking Ecstasy on the weekends and dancing like
crazy until dawn could ever be harmful, they said. And rolling sounds
cool and fun, even to someone who doesn't approve of drugs at all.

"Everyone says it's the best feeling in the world," said Brittany.