CUSTOMS CRACKS DOWN ON ECSTASY

WASHINGTON (AP) - As the hallucinogenic drug ecstasy flows into the country
in record amounts, the Customs Service is strengthening its efforts to nab
traffickers.

The agency has created a task force to coordinate cases dealing with the
drug, which is popular among teen-agers, and is training 13 drug-detection
dogs to sniff out the substance, Customs Commissioner Raymond Kelly said
Monday.

Kelly also posted a message on the Customs Service's World Wide Web site,
http://www.customs.gov, seeking to educate parents and young people about
the drug and its dangers.

``The new measures we're taking are designed to keep the ecstasy problem
from becoming a full-fledged epidemic,'' Kelly said in a statement.

Since Oct. 1, customs officials have seized almost 4 million doses of the
drug, an all-time high, the service said. For fiscal year 1999, which ended
Sept. 30, inspectors confiscated 3 million doses and in the 1998 fiscal
year, 750,000 doses.

In December, customs officials in California confiscated 700 pounds of the
drug, the single largest seizure of its kind in the agency's history.

``Ecstasy has rapidly become a major concern for Customs,'' Kelly said.

In Europe, from where many of the tablets are imported, the doses cost just
a few pennies apiece to make, Kelly said. But once the tablets are sold in
the United States, they can fetch $20 to $40 each, he said.

``Because of this profit margin, international crime groups have become
heavily involved in the ecstasy trade,'' Kelly said. ``These syndicates are
capable of smuggling huge quantities of ecstasy.''

Former Mafia hit man Salvatore ``Sammy the Bull'' Gravano was arrested in
February for alleged participation in an ecstasy-peddling ring.

Customs said the drug is popular among teen-agers, especially those who
frequent nightclubs and all-night technodance parties known as ``raves.''

Urban areas remain the primary venues for raves, but they also are creeping
into suburban and rural communities. With those parties comes the illegal
use of ecstasy, the Customs Service says.

The drug is chemically known as MDMA for Methylenedioxymethylamphetamine.

Ecstasy's users normally experience feelings of euphoria and an increased
desire to interact socially, the service said. Blood pressure, heart rate
and body temperature increase dramatically. Other physical symptoms include
involuntary teeth-grinding. To counter this, some users suck on pacifiers.