IT'S ALL THE RAVE

SUDDENLY PEOPLE ALL OVER THE country are talking about "ecstasy" as if it
were something other than what an eight-year-old feels at Disney World.
Occasionally the trickle from the fringe to the heartland turns into a
slipstream, and that seems to have happened with the heart-pulsing, mildly
psychedelic drug called ecstasy.

To get a sense of just how far and fast "e" has moved into American
communities in the past year or so, talk to Mark Bradford, a junior at the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

"I came to college in the fall of '97," says Bradford, 21, "and I didn't
even know the word had another meaning." It's not shocking that young Mark
moved from suburban St. Louis to find drugs on a big campus. But it's a
little surprising where he encountered ecstasy, a drug first used in the
1970s by a small group of avant-garde psychotherapists -- at frat houses.

As president of the university's Interfraternity Council, Bradford has
found himself in meetings with police to discuss frat boys' growing
appetite for a drug today usually associated with teen ravers, gay men and
what's left of America's aging hippies, "It's everywhere now," says
Bradford, who doesn't touch the stuff.

Law enforcers are coming across gigantic stashes of ecstasy in places where
it was rarely seen. E comes as tablets or capsules, and since December,
Ohio authorities have seized 25,000 pills in Columbus and 200 more in rural
Lorain County. In January some 30 people were arrested in New Orleans for
distributing the drug. Two weeks ago in Providence, R.I., a seven-month
investigation into ecstasy dealing ended with the arrest of 23. In bigger
cities, the trade has exploded. In December the U.S. Customs Service
discovered 100 lbs. of ecstasy shipped from France to the FedEx
headquarters in Memphis. The agents followed the drug's intended trail to
L.A. and found a staggering 1.2 million tablets, worth $30 million.

And in an elaborate sting last summer, customs agents 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. (Israeli
organized crime dominates the global trade, according to the U.S. government.)

The busts have had little effect.

Nationwide, customs officers have already seized more ecstasy this fiscal
year (nearly 3.3 million hits) than in all of last year; in 1997, they
seized just 400,000 hits. In a 1998 survey, 8% of high school seniors said
they had tried e, up from 5.8% the year before.

In New York City, according to another survey, 1 in 4 adolescents has tried
ecstasy. So much e is coming into the U.S. that the Customs Service has
created a special ecstasy command center and is training 13 more dogs to
sniff out the drug.

But it took a seizure in Phoenix two weeks ago to generate e's first big
press coverage in years.

That bust snared Salvatore Gravano, the notorious Mob hit man turned
government snitch.

Like the Hasidim, Gravano is a rather curious newcomer to the ecstasy culture.

You wouldn't think someone nicknamed "Sammy the Bull" would be peddling the
so-called hug drug. But simple reasons lie behind the drug's popularity
among sellers and users.

E is cheap to make, easy to distribute and consume--no dirty syringes or
passe coke spoons needed, thanks--and it has a reputation for being fun.
E's euphoria may be chemically manufactured, but it feels no less real to
users.

It's called the hug drug because it engenders gooey, rather gauche
expressions of empathy from users.

Last week students at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff reminisced
about melting into "cuddle puddles," groups of students who massage and
embrace on the dance floor. The skin feels tremblingly alive when caressed.
"Feathers, toys, lotions, anything," gurgles "Katrina," 23, a student at
N.A.U. "A guy touching your skin with a cold drink. It's delicious."

Though often cut with other drugs, ecstasy pills are at least intended to
be a substance called MDMA (and known only to chemists as
methylenedioxymethamphetamine). MDMA is pharmacologically related to
amphetamine and mescaline, but it doesn't produce the nervy, wired feeling
that typically accompanies speed or the confusion of a purer psychedelic
like LSD. It doesn't generate addictive cravings. Treatment admissions for
drugs of its type still account for less than 1% of the total, according to
Dr. Blanche Frank of the New York State office of alcohol and substance abuse.

In fact, e's popularity is largely due to its lack of noticeable downsides.

It's possible to overdose on ecstasy, but even police agree that the drug
isn't like heroin or crack in terms of short-term dangers.

Most problems are attributable to dehydration among novices who don't drink
water.

However, another club drug, GHB - which is also known as "Liquid X" though
it's chemically unrelated to ecstasy - can easily cause coma and death.

MDMA was first synthesized in 1912, but the big experiments with it didn't
begin until the 1970s, when a group of psychologists rediscovered it as a
tool for therapy.

By the early '80s, the drug - still 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 long-term brain damage.

In 1985, on the basis of preliminary data about its harmfulness, the DEA
used its discretionary power to outlaw MDMA. A group of therapists sued,
but after a three-year court battle, the DEA won the right to ban the drug
permanently.

So why is it upon us again?

Partly because the debate about MDMA's harmfulness has never been resolved.

Johns Hopkins neurologist George Ricaurte has concluded in several animal
studies and one human study that MDMA can damage a particular group of the
brain's nerve cells. But he wants more research.

Last week Ricaurte said his work has never shown that the damage to the
affected cells has any visible effect on "the vast majority of people who
have experimented with MDMA." The debate has now found its way onto the
Web, where the old therapist crowd behind MDMA has become active.

The sites are populated mostly by young users, however, kids who blindly
praise the drug ("Sammy the Bull rules," wrote one last week).

But the most important reason for e's quick and recent spread into places
like Denver and Sacramento is that professional criminals have almost
completely assumed control of its trade.

The life of a typical tablet found in the U.S. begins somewhere along the
Dutch-Belgian border, a quiet region of pig farmers.

The setting is rural but not far from the Brussels airport.

Manufacturers convert abandoned barns or garden sheds into e factories,
which can be 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 national police force.

These mills aren't mom-and-pop 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
setup the marginal cost of each pill is maybe 10 cents . It's sold in New
York City clubs for $30,

U.S. Customs commissioner Raymond Kelly says professional criminals in this
country have brought better management and marketing to the ecstasy trade.

Mobsters have the distribution networks to move millions of pills.

And most pills now come with a catchy brand name-like the "Candy Canes"
taken in Flagstaff (red and white capsules) or tablets stamped with
corporate logos.

Users can ask dealers for a good brand by name. Last year's "Mitsubishis,"
for instance, were hugely popular because they seemed to have an extra kick
of speed.

This winter's "AOLS," however, were duds.

What is the future of ecstasy?

Officials in the Low Countries are cracking down on e factories but warn
that production is cropping up in central Europe and Spain. For good
reason: Americans are in love with ecstasy. "New York used to be a meat
and-potatoes drug town - heroin, coke and pot," says John Silbering, a
former narcotics prosecutor who works for the Tunnel, a big New York City
nightclub. "Today we no longer find coke or heroin among the young. It's
always ecstasy."