IT'S ALL THE RAVE

Ecstasy, once a drug confined to the club scene, is flooding many high
schools and universities. Here's why.

Before setting out to board a Sabena flight from Brussels to Shanghai via
Beijing last week, three Malaysian men stuffed 32 kg of the synthetic drug
ecstasy into cardboard candy boxes and distributed it among their carry-on
bags. Tens of thousands of the pills were stamped with the number 88--a
lucky number for intended consumers in China, but not for the couriers.
Belgian police arrested them at the airport. Their only stroke of luck was
to have been caught in Belgium rather than the Far East, where drug
trafficking can draw a death sentence.

That seizure, the biggest so far this year at Brussels National Airport,
offered a glimpse at just how huge and lucrative the export market has
become for ecstasy, most of which is produced in the Netherlands and
Belgium. Police in both countries report sharp increases in seizures since
the end of 1998. Production is booming and distribution becoming more
professional. Alongside traditional markets in Europe there is now big
money to be made smuggling e into Australia, Israel and even Southeast
Asia. But what is driving the market is the seemingly insatiable appetite
for ecstasy among young Americans.

Law enforcers in the U.S. have started to come across gigantic stashes of
European-made ecstasy in places where it was rarely seen before last year.
U.S. Customs officers have already seized more ecstasy this fiscal year
(nearly 3.3 million hits) than in all of last year; in 1997, it seized just
400,000 hits. In New York City, according to one survey, one in four
adolescents has tried ecstasy. In December, U.S. Customs Service agents
discovered 45 kg of ecstasy shipped from France to the FedEx headquarters
in Memphis. The agents followed the drugs' intended trail to Los Angeles
and eventually found a staggering 1.2 million tablets, worth about $30
million.

In one elaborate sting last summer, Customs and the Drug Enforcement
Administration helped dismantle a far-flung ecstasy empire run by a
Canadian based in Amsterdam who allegedly claimed he could sell 100,000
hits of ecstasy in Miami in 48 hours. The mastermind was using
pious-looking Hasidic Jews as couriers between Europe and Miami. The
assistant U.S. attorney prosecuting the case says the couriers imported a
total of more than 1 million pills.

Simple reasons lie behind the drug's popularity among both sellers and
users: e is cheap to make, easy to distribute and consume--no syringes or
passe coke spoons needed, thanks--and it is undeniably fun to do. E's
euphoria may be chemically manufactured, but it feels no less real. The
mildly psychedelic drug not only helps its mostly young users bear up under
the onslaught of dance music delivering 220 bone-jarring beats per minute.
It also induces a sense of well-being and universal connection that can
melt whole crowds of clubbers into "cuddle puddles"--groups of students who
massage and embrace on the dance floor. Says one denizen of the New York
City club scene: "E makes shirtless, disgusting men, a club with broken
bathrooms, a DJ that plays crap, and vomiting into a trash can the best
night of your life."

Though they are often cut with other drugs, ecstasy pills are at least
supposed to be a substance called MDMA (and known only to chemists by its
full name: methylenedioxymethamphetamine). MDMA is pharmacologically
related to both amphetamines and mescaline, though it produces neither the
nervy, wired feeling that accompanies speed nor the confusion of a pure
psychedelic like lsd. It doesn't generate physically addictive cravings,
but many users report they need higher and higher doses to get the same
"roll" or high. "The drug has a fuzzy image," says Georges Estievenart,
director of the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction in
Lisbon. "The people who use it aren't marginalized like heroin users, and
they aren't very conscious that they're taking a risk."

In fact, its lack of immediately noticeable downsides accounts in large
part for e's popularity. It's possible to overdose on ecstasy, but even
police agree that the drug isn't like heroin or crack in regard to
short-term dangers. Most deaths are attributable to severe dehydration
among young novices who don't drink water. Another club drug, however--ghb,
which is also known as "Liquid X" even though it's chemically unrelated to
ecstasy--can easily cause coma and death. MDMA was first synthesized in
1912, but the first big experiments with it didn't begin until the 1970s,
when a group of psychologists rediscovered it as a possible tool in therapy
settings. By the early '80s, the drug--then perfectly legal--was sold
openly in bars and clubs. But at the time a scientific debate had
begun--and continues today--about whether MDMA can cause brain damage.
Estievenart says some studies indicate it can in the medium term, but even
Dr. George Ricaurte, the Johns Hopkins University neurologist who first
warned of the drug's toxicity, says that his ongoing research has never
shown that MDMA's probable damage to certain nerve cells has any visible
effect on "the vast majority" of users. The debate has now found its way
onto the Internet, where the old therapist crowd behind MDMA has become
active again. Ecstasy websites are mostly populated by young users,
however, kids who praise the drug and spread advice about which tablets
offer the best high.

The life of a typical ecstasy tablet begins somewhere along the
Dutch-Belgian border, a quiet region of pig farmers and mushroom growers.
The setting is rural but it's not far from the Brussels airport.
Manufacturers convert abandoned barns, garden sheds and even mobile pommes
frites stands into factories that range from professional quality to
downright filthy. "They've been mixing chemicals in dirty cans I wouldn't
even use for garbage," says Charles De Winter, director of the drug section
of Belgium's police force. But these mills aren't amateur setups, at least
not anymore. "We're seeing more and more hardened criminals," says Cees van
Doorn, a Dutch organized crime specialist.

They are drawn by the profits: after the initial expense of setup, the
marginal cost of each pill is maybe 10 cent. It's sold in New York City clubs
for $30. Most ecstasy pills now come with a catchy brand name--anything
from Mickey Mouse to a corporate trademark. Users ask dealers for a good
brand by name, if it's still being produced. Last year's "Mitsubishis," for
instance, were hugely popular because they seemed to have an extra kick of
speed. This winter's "AOLs" were duds.

Officials in Belgium and the Netherlands are cracking down on the network
of ecstasy factories and tightening controls, but that will hardly put an
end to the booming ecstasy business. "There's a lot of money involved, and
these guys are always adapting," says Tony Verachtert, head of the Belgian
National Police organized crime squad at the Brussels National Airport.
Production is cropping up in places like Spain and Central Europe--in some
cases by transplanted Dutch experts. For now, the quality of European
ecstasy assures a nearly boundless market in the U.S. European police will
breathe somewhat easier when American producers catch up.

With reporting by Edward Barnes/New York, Joseph A. Reaves/Flagstaff and
Elaine Shannon/Washington