DRUG SEIZURES SUGGEST ECSTASY FLOW BECOMING EPIDEMIC

NEW YORK (AP) -- 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 $7.5 million
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 epicenter 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. U.S.
Customs reports it confiscated 3.5 million pills throughout the country in
fiscal 1999, compared to 750,000 in 1998; the total has already reached 4
million this year.

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

Agents have discovered ecstasy stashed in airmailed packages, and in
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 for sale in a youthful and expanding U.S. market for up to $40 a
piece, authorities said.

Using undercover officers and cooperating suspects, authorities have learned
that the New York imports serve a vast Northeast market. Federal officials,
who asked not to be identified, said New York appeared to be the largest
American gateway for ecstasy based on number of pills seized.

Other major entry points include Miami and Orlando. Memphis -- a hub for
international air deliveries -- is the main supplier for California.

The multimillion dollar profit potential has attracted an eclectic
collection of traffickers working in varied locales, as evidenced by the
Feb. 24 arrest of notorious mob turncoat Salvatore ``Sammy the Bull''
Gravano for his alleged role in an ecstasy ring in Phoenix, and the seizure
of 30,000 pills carried by an air traveler to Cincinnati three weeks later.

Authorities say Israeli and Russian organized 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 which believed their traditional black hats, dark suits
and sidecurls would deflect suspicion. They were given the 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 of 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 last month after authorities shut down an East Coast ring
selling 100,000 pills a week.

Customs Commissioner Raymond Kelly has used the agency's Web site,
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 also have repeatedly cited medical evidence that
ecstasy causes severe dehydration, dizziness and headaches or, with
prolonged use, depression, memory loss and even permanent brain damage.

``There's a notion that ecstasy makes you feel good, that there's no
downside,'' Kelly said in an interview. ``But there's plenty of horror
stories.''

The DEA classifies ecstasy in the same category as LSD and heroin. As with
those drugs, federal defendants face stiff penalties. For instance, 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 defense attorney representing a real estate owner in another federal
ecstasy conspiracy case.

Pro-ecstasy Web sites argue the drug bears no real resemblance to hard-core
narcotics. They note both the absence of widespread gunplay, turf wars,
overdoses and physical addiction associated with the cocaine and heroin
trade, and ecstasy's history of use by some therapists to enhance
psychotherapy.

One student at Bard College, a small liberal arts school north of New York
City, says ecstasy is readily available through a network of fellow
students.

``It's been the one drug where there's been the steadiest supply this
semester,'' the student, who asked that his name not be used, said in an
interview.

He said he takes a $25 ``hit'' of ecstasy before going to small weekend
dance parties. The drug, he added, is considered on par with marijuana and
alcohol.

``It's like it's not a big deal around here,'' he said.