ECSTASY SUBS HEIGHTEN DRUG DANGER

Use of the designer drug ecstasy has soared in the past year,
prompting criminals to peddle dangerous companion drugs and
potentially fatal imitations to cash in on its trendiness.

"Kids are buying these chemicals and they're not sure what's in the
pill and they're winding up in the emergency room," said William
Bloomer, chief of the state attorney general's drug unit.

Ecstasy use among teens, college students and young professionals is
soaring - at nightclubs, concerts and all-night underground parties
called raves.

A recent study by the University of Michigan found that ecstasy use by
high school sophomores and seniors doubled last year, from 3 percent
to 6 percent. In the Northeast, the numbers were even higher, with 10
percent of teens saying they have tried the drug, the study found.

Ecstasy, known as X, or simply, E, is a combination stimulant and mild
hallucinogen which increases the amount of seratonin released by the
brain, producing a relaxed, euphoric state. Club-goers and ravers
dance to thundering techno and house music, swing glow sticks and suck
on ice or chew gum to negate the drug's jaw-clenching
side-effects.

"It's definitely becoming more of a problem," Bloomer said. "We're
seeing it centrally with college and high school students and in the
nightclub scene. It's a popular drug right now."

Alcohol is said to dull the mind-bending high and can result in
dehydration, which is why many users sip orange juice or bottled
water, sold at some clubs for $5 a pop. Pills vary in color and are
stamped with automobile logos, cartoon characters or other symbols,
such as the Playboy bunny or the Nike swoosh.

On a recent night at Axis on Lansdowne Street, two dealers said
ecstasy could be bought for $20, while at Axis and Avalon, several
people were looking to score pills. At Axis, one wide-eyed Boston
College student danced in a corner alone and said he was "rolling," a
reference to being under the influence of the drug.

In recent months, ecstasy busts have been made at Needham High School,
a Malden bowling alley and in Rhode Island where 24 people - most in
their early 20s - were nabbed as part of an interstate drug ring with
ties to Russian and Israeli crime groups. While the drugs are made in
clandestine labs across the country and the recipe can be easily found
on the Internet, most ecstasy is imported from Europe, usually through
the Netherlands and France.

A 30-year-old Canadian man stopped at Logan Airport Feb. 19 allegedly
had 15,000 tablets strapped to his stomach that he was smuggling in
from Brussels, Belgium. At an Ontario airport last month, two teens
were busted coming back from France with more than 34,000 pills
strapped to their legs.

"We're seeing it quite often at the airport, coming in mainly from
western Europe - Germany and Amsterdam," said Kevin Cloherty, chief of
the U.S. Attorney's office's drug unit.

Once in the country, the drugs are distributed on college campuses, at
raves and in nightclubs, usually among tight networks of friends which
are difficult for police to penetrate.

Last January, Boston police went undercover to bust 11 people
allegedly selling ecstasy in Avalon while a 1998 designer drug sweep
netted 21 people, including dealers at Axis selling ecstasy, crystal
methamphetamine and Ketamine, a powerful tranquilizer known as
"Special K." Similar busts were made last year at clubs in Maine and
New Hampshire.

According to the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, seizures of
ecstasy - chemically known as methyldioxymethamphetamine, or MDMA -
have surged 500 percent in five years, from just 196 tablets in 1993
to 220,000 pills in the first five months of 1999. U.S. Customs
officials seized 3.5 million tablets last year, up from 350,000 in
1997, and expect to confiscate as many as 8 million pills this year.

"The message should go out that state and federal authorities are
aware that ecstasy is emerging and folks that deal with it will be
prosecuted," Cloherty said.

While many find the boom of the so-called "love drug" alarming, the
true danger lies in the massive black market the phenomenon has
spawned, law enforcement officials and watchdog groups say.

Drug dealers hoping to cash in on the trend are scrambling to find
cheap alternatives to push on inexperienced users. Government
crackdowns on legal ingredients used to make MDMA has sent
self-anointed chemists on wild goose chases to find ways to meet the
demand.

As a result, many dealers end up substituting ingredients to make
cheaper, and often more dangerous concoctions, which are peddled as
ecstasy.

A recent study done by the nonprofit "club drug" watchdog group,
Dancesafe.org, found that as little as 30 percent of pills tested
contained pure MDMA. Many tablets, including a batch of blue pills
circulating in Boston, contained DXM, a cough suppressant which has
similar effects to ecstasy but can be lethal in high doses or when
mixed with real ecstasy. Other tablets tested contained caffeine,
ephedrine, dog worming pills, PCP, LSD or Ketamine, among other substances.

Last weekend, two Wentworth College students, apparently thinking they
had taken ecstasy, overdosed on DXM, which was allegedly purchased
over the Internet by other students at the school.

"Black market dealers are pressing DXM into pills and selling them as
ecstasy," Dancesafe Executive Director Emanuel Sferios said. "It's
cheaper to make and it tricks users. Whoever's pressing these things
is making millions."

When 20-year-old Kelly Ann Sullivan of Uxbridge died in a Hyannis
motel last month, she is believed to have ingested a lethal
combination of ecstasy and GHB, a chemical solvent often taken as an
ecstasy enhancer or substitute. Federal drug officials say GHB, called
"liquid G" or "liquid ecstasy," is to blame for at least 65 deaths
since 1993. Originally sold in health food stores as a weight lifting
supplement, it was banned under federal law this month.

"I fear we're going to see many more overdoses on GHB. It's a big
concern right now," Sferios said.

Sferios' group, which is opening a Boston chapter this summer, runs a
licensed pill testing laboratory and attends raves to test tablets and
educate users. The group focuses heavily on the dangers of GHB,
Ketamine and DXM, as well as two emerging copycat drugs, 4-MTA and
DOB, which have been blamed for at least four recent deaths in Europe.

"We understand that `just say no' doesn't work, so we try to provide
as much information as possible," Sferios said. "So many people use
ecstasy these days that it's a public safety issue."