US BATTLES A FLOOD OF ECSTASY TABLET IMPORTS

A lawyer arriving from Paris is stopped at John F. Kennedy
International Airport for a routine customs inspection. Discovered in
the false bottom of his bag are 21,000 ecstasy pills.

An Israeli is overheard on a wiretap arranging illicit deliveries of
ecstasy to Manhattan hotels. Investigators seize 300,000 pills worth
$US7.5million ($A12.36million) and make 32 arrests.

A young ultra-Orthodox Jew, about to be sentenced in Brooklyn, laments
accepting a free flight to Belgium in exchange for returning with
luggage laden with a designer drug - again, ecstasy.

Authorities cite these recent cases and others as proof that New York
City has become the epicentre of a national boom in illegal imports of
ecstasy, the synthetic "psychedelic amphetamine" also known as MDMA,
or simply E.

Seizures of the innocent-looking tablets - some are embossed with
smiley faces, shamrocks or Playboy bunny ears - have multiplied like
rabbits. US Customs reports it confiscated 3.5 million pills
throughout the country in the 1999 financial year, compared to 750,000
in 1998.

In the New York City area alone, the totals were 1.3million pills in
1999, up from 48,400 in 1998.

Agents have discovered ecstasy stashed in airmailed packages, imported
cars and antique furniture. But mainly it's smuggled in luggage
carried by couriers from Europe, where pills are produced for less
than a dollar each for sale in a youthful and expanding United States
market for up to $US40 apiece, authorities said.

Using undercover officers and cooperating suspects, authorities have
learned that the New York imports serve a vast north-eastern market.
The multi-million-dollar profit potential has attracted an eclectic
collection of traffickers working in varied locales, as shown by the
February 24 arrest of notorious mob turncoat Salvatore Gravano for his
alleged role in an ecstasy ring in Phoenix, and the seizure of 30,000
pills carried by an air traveller to Cincinnati three weeks later.

Authorities say Israeli and Russian organised crime groups - and even
some members of Brooklyn's conservative Jewish communities - are
hooked on dealing ecstasy.

Joel Gluck, 19, was one of several young Hasidic men recruited by an
Amsterdam-based ring that believed their traditional black hats, dark
suits and sidecurls would deflect suspicion. They were given trips to
Europe and cash in exchange for smuggling back millions of pills.

Federal officials have responded to the ecstasy explosion with a
flurry of enforcement measures and "war on drugs" rhetoric reminiscent
of the crack cocaine scare a decade ago.

"Only with a concerted global law enforcement offensive can we conquer
this threat," the acting head of the Drug Enforcement Administration,
Donnie Marshall, declared in March after authorities shut down an east
coast ring selling 100,000 pills a week.

Customs Commissioner Raymond Kelly has used the agency's website,
www.customs.gov, to warn parents that ecstasy abuse - once confined to
urban dance parties known as raves - has become a "full-fledged
epidemic" spreading into suburbia and other sheltered
communities.

The commissioner and others have repeatedly cited medical evidence
that ecstasy causes severe dehydration, dizziness and headaches and,
with prolonged use, depression, memory loss and even permanent brain
damage.

The DEA classifies ecstasy in the same category as LSD and heroin. As
with those drugs, federal defendants face stiff penalties. The
suppliers in the Hasidic courier case face up to 20 years in prison if
convicted.

Those sentencing guidelines, critics charge, are too
harsh.

"There's a drastic difference between ecstasy and crack cocaine or
heroin, but the guidelines don't appreciate that difference," said
Joseph Tacopina, a defence attorney representing a real estate owner
in another federal ecstasy conspiracy case.