ECSTASY WHY PEOPLE ARE MAKING A BIG DEAL OVER THIS HAPPY LITTLE PILL

Inside: A Look At The Drug Everyone Is Raving About.

Outside the Barrymore Theater during a set break for the jazz band Medeski
Martin & Wood, there's a steady stream of people pouring out to get their
nicotine fix. A friend of mine strolls up with a fluid step.

"How you doin'?" I ask. The answer is obvious. The dilated pupils and beads
of sweat on his blanched forehead could've been from LSD, but the grin and
loose posture gives him away. "I'm rollin' my nuts off, man. Isn't the show
awesome?"

MDMA. Ecstasy. X. It's a little happy pill. It's the blight of America's
youth. It's harmless. It'll kill you. It's fun. It's enlightening. It's
illegal. It's readily available. And it's the least understood drug on the
black market.

To the government, MDMA is the latest in a long line of scourges sent to
plague our children and harm their fragile little minds. Research sponsored
by the National Institutes for Health claims that MDMA has severe short and
long-term side effects and can kill you in a single dose. To aficionados,
it 's the world's perfect drug--less edgy than coke, less twisted than LSD,
safe in moderation, and it makes you love everybody.

They're both right, sort of.

'IT MAKES YOU FEEL GOOD'

There can be little doubt that MDMA is a rare and special high, one that
some users claim can change people's lives in positive ways. As Matthew
Klam, drawing on personal experience, wrote recently in The New York Times
Magazine:

"People have turned to mind-altering substances since the beginning of time
in search of enlightenment. But while other drugs, from ayahuasca to
nitrous oxide, produce euphoria, Ecstasy creates not just a rush but a
singular type of emotional elevation--you are launched on a hot-air balloon
ride that floats above the pitfalls of typical humanity. The what-ifs, the
self-doubts, are knocked flat, and instead a hunger for human connection
and a desire to emphasize firmly take hold. No other drug produces that
kind of feeling."

And it is true that Ecstacy is dangerous. At a physiological level, it
interferes with the body's ability to regulate its core temperature and
speeds up its exocrine processes. This can cause acute heat exhaustion,
dehydration, and death, as in the case of Brett Zweifel, a 16-year-old
Madison high school student who died in a parking garage following a rave
at the Barrymore last September.

But unlike cocaine or heroin, which can cause an acute toxic reaction,
Ecstasy less often leads to serious medical trauma. Last year, 554,000
people ended up in U.S. emergency rooms because of cocaine, heroin, or
other drugs. Ecstacy, in contrast, accounted for about 3,000 visits.

Sophisticated users and doctors alike say Ecstasy's danger can be mitigated
by staying cool, minimizing overexertion, and drinking fluids. Drinking
alcohol while rolling isn't advisable because MDMA is rough on your liver
and too much booze can cause a toxic reaction, as well as keep you dehydrated.

Will (a pseudonym, like other first-name sources in this article), a
UW-Madison grad student and occasional user, says safe MDMA use "is just
risk-management, which is mostly common sense. The only people who die are
stupid people."

Perhaps. But in addition to MDMA's physiological effects, "there are
legitimate concerns regarding its neurotoxic side effects," says Nick
Cozzi, a pharmacologist at the University of North Carolina-Greenville and
expert on the drug and its effects. Like many neurotoxic substances, "MDMA
causes a certain amount of oxidative stress to the brain." In other words,
it's toxic to brain cells independently of its pharmacological effect, as
is paint thinner.

However, notes Cozzi, formerly a professor at UW- Madison, "There is
evidence that high doses of anti-oxidants like vitamin C will help protect
against that stress."

Besides oxidative stress, MDMA has significant pharmacological side
effects. Research on rats and primates performed by George Ricuarte, the
designated hitter for an anti-MDMA all star research team funded by the
National Institutes for Health, suggests that MDMA usage causes dramatic
decreases in levels of serotonin, the "happy hormone" regulated by
prescription anti-depressants like Prozac or Zoloft.

Depression is an oft-reported side effect of long-term MDMA usage--which,
notes Cozzi, "is consistent with our understanding of how serotonin and how
drugs like Prozac work."

Again, knowledge is the key to minimizing risk. Taking Prozac or similar
anti-depressant four to six hours after dropping MDMA may help reduce
serotonin deficits. "If I were concerned about that side-effect," says
Cozzi, "that's a potential inhibitor."

None of which changes that MDMA "makes you feel good," says Jerry, a
23-year-old guitar player living on Madison's east side. Jerry rolls--slang
for dropping Ecstasy--at concerts, or when playing music. "I like to roll
at shows because it allows me experience the music in a direct way," he says.

"Acid does that too, but on X I can feel the music in every pore and
orifice in my body."

This feeling is amplified when he's the one on stage. "Rolls allow me to
play at my highest level," he says with conviction. "I can maximize my
endurance, my creativity, my connection to the crowd and really just my
passion for the music." The emotional connection that made MDMA famous is
given a voice in his guitar. "Playing music on X is the only time I've ever
felt that my instrument was completely internalized, completely inside me."

Jerry has taken MDMA about 50 times. He's eased off lately "mostly because
of money," but is thinking about drying out for a while. "I've been hanging
around some people who were just doing this stuff every damn day, man, and
they just cut it out," he says. "They said it was just makin' them fuckin'
dumb."

One of these friends, Ken, is as enthusiastic about the drug as anyone I
spoke to. "X just a good time, y'know," says Ken, searching for words. "It
expands your mind and you learn a lot. It helps you connect with people."

But as much as he digs the drug, he's wary of the danger, and has taken an
indefinite hiatus.

"I guess you just grow out of it eventually," he says. "I was like 'I've
been doin' this stuff a lot and I don't need to do it anymore. Plus I was
watchin' this show on MTV and they showed this girl who had been doing a
lot of X getting a CAT scan and her brain was full of holes. I was just
like I don't know what she's been doin' but if X has those kind of side
effects that isn't a good thing."

BIG TARGET

Ecstasy sells in Madison for between $15 and $30 a hit. It comes in a
variety of forms, from aspirin look-alikes to florescent orange pills with
pressed on happy faces. Users typically take one to three pills for a high
that lasts four to six hours but can residual effects for days.

Supply, particularly of quality product, is erratic, so its not uncommon
for a group to pool resources and buy pills in bulk to make sure they can
satisfy their appetites. I've had it offered for sale at concerts and in
some clubs. A friend of mine bought some from his friend's kid's friend.

Plus as demand had increased. Most run of the mill dope dealers have gotten
into the business, at least on the side.

In recent months, and especially since Zweifel's death, there is growing
concern in Madison about Ecstasy use. "We're still seeing relatively small
quantities, but we're seeing it more often. Of late, there seems to be more
Ecstasy in town and we're having more raves and they're certainly
associated with Ecstasy and other party drugs," says Task Force Commander
Lt. Bill Housley in the Wisconsin State Journal. Investigation distribution
has proven vexing because, according to Housley, "Ecstasy is not purchased
on the street. It's purchased at parties."

The association of Ecstasy distribution and raves is a big part of why the
Alliant Energy Center has stopped allowing raves to be hosted on site. "The
challenge is that the culture of these events in the past has been very
associated with high drug use," said Bill DiCarlo in November, explaining
the center's decision not to hold raves anymore.

The Dane County Narcotics and Gang Task Force busted 26 people in the
Alliant Energy Center parking lot during a rave in November of last year,
mostly for possession of Ecstasy. The majority were arrested for simple
possession, although some were arrested for intent to distribute.

Yet contrary to popular belief, Ecstasy use and rave culture do not do
hand-in-hand. "Ravers just have the most conspicuous association with the
drug," says India, whose hair and clothes make her the most colorful object
in most rooms. She does not do X, nor does she desire to.

"I guess it makes it easy for people. They get it in their mind that all
ravers do X and all people who do X are ravers, then they don't have to
think about the fact that their friend who works in the office three doors
down did it last weekend."

Regardless of who's doing it, MDMA has become the next big target in the
war on drugs. Its connection to the rave scene makes it a loud target. The
media scare over Ecstasy has mostly played to parents' fears, and the
political fallout has spread just as swiftly.

MDMA is on Schedule 1 of the federal Controlled Substances Act; possession
or sale of the drug can bring penalties of up to 15 years and a $150,000
fine. And there's a strong push for even stiffer penalties. The Ecstasy and
Club-Drug Anti-Proliferation Acts of 2000 would have equated MDMA with
amphetamines for the purposes of sentencing--drastically increasing the
penalties for possession of user quantities--before it was amended to
"suggest" applying these higher guidelines to high-level traffickers.

The government and media reaction is not surprising. "Sometimes, the
reaction to issues is massively out of proportion to the phenomenon at
hand," said Penn State Historian Phillip Jenkins, testifying on this
legislation before the house Judiciary Committee last June 15. "In such
instances, people are reacting less to the matter at hand--say, a
particular drug--than to its cultural or social associations. People may
latch on to a particular issue because it is an acceptable way of attacking
some perceived threat that cannot be addressed openly."

Thus, like cannabis in the '40s, LSD in the '60s, and crack in the '80s,
Ecstasy, said Jenkins, can be "exploited by bureaucratic agencies who stand
to gain new resources on the strength of public fears."

These new resources, if deployed, would likely go abroad. Most of the MDMA
consumed in the U.S. comes from laboratories in Europe and Asia. "MDMA is a
simple molecule--much simpler than something like LSD, for instance--and it
is also easy to make, if you can get the raw materials," says Noah , a
chemist at the University of Washington.

THE DANGER

MDMA was originally patented as a diet pill by Merck Pharmaceuticals in
1913. It allegedly enjoyed a brief stint as a truth serum for the U.S. Army
in the 1950s and '60s until it was rediscovered, along with a host of other
psychotropic substances, by a Dow research chemist named Alexander Shulgin.

He made a lot of it, used it, wrote about it and gave it away, becoming the
Timothy Leary of MDMA.

But since then, most of the Ecstasy consumed in the United States has been
an import product. Making it here, says Noah, would cost a fortune. "Not
only is MDMA tightly regulated, but all of the precursors are as well, and
you have to have the right permits and a good reason if you want to buy
those materials," he says. "They watch it pretty closely."

Plus, foreign labs are able to deliver an economy of scale: "You can just
make a ton of it if you have the right equipment and the right materials,
and they're set up to do it in places like Amsterdam."

When MDMA arrives in the U.S., it is usually pure, in powder form. What
happens to after that is another matter.

Ecstasy sold on the streets can be anything from pure MDMA to an amalgam
that includes speed, muscle relaxants, cold medicine and any of a variety
of MDMA-like chemicals that are highly toxic. Unless you are in the know or
well-connected, buying it is a crapshoot-or potentially Russian roulette.

Nine people died in Chicago and Orlando last year, and hundreds more
visited emergency rooms for dehydration, heart palpitations and symptoms of
heatstroke after taking what they thought was MDMA. It wasn't, it was PMA,
a hallucinogenic stimulant experimented with in the '70s that never became
popular due to its high toxicity. It was sold as X.

Most veteran Ecstasy eaters have a story of getting burned by someone
selling bunk X. Side effects range from headaches to heart attacks and
death. Extreme discomfort is commonplace.

Kids are most likely to run into problems with bad drugs. Dealers aren't
marketing fluorescent orange pills with happy faces on them to 35 year olds.

Adult users tend to be more aware of the distinction between pure MDMA and
adulterated Ecstasy. They do it less frequently, and are willing to pay for
the good stuff. These people are generally searching for an atavistic
consciousness-expanding experience or great sex, and are happy to avoid
what Hunter Thompson called the "grim meat hook realities" that lurk at the
end of an LSD trip.

Younger users are less likely to know the difference between the wheat and
the chaff. One young interviewee for this story asked me what MDMA was. And
whether they are at a rave, in the basement or at the park just chillin',
they often aren't very cautious about what they put into their bodies so
long as they think that it will get them off. These people are the bread
and butter of the X market.

One volunteer organization, dancesafe.org, has a service that photographs
and tests pills sent to it anonymously in the mail for content, but not
amount. One pill tested sold on the street in Milwaukee in January 2001 as
Ecstasy, but was actually DXM, a cough suppressant that's highly toxic to
the liver.

'BETTER THAN THERAPY'

For those who find the good stuff, an almost universal refrain is that the
first time is amazing, fantastic, spectacular, or whatever.

Marisa, 27, rolled for the first time New Year's Eve 2000. She went to a
club with her sister and "really felt at peace. Just extremely comfortable."

She danced and talked and drank water and "felt really emotionally secure.

Bad stuff came up in my mind while I was rolling, but it was so easy just
to put it into perspective," she says. "I was completely awake and clear.
And calm. It's better than any therapy I've ever done. I think it helps
bring you clarity on problems you tend to avoid."

She plans to do it again, as many do, in pursuit of that first experience.

"The first time I did it in '95 was absolutely fantastic," says Will. "I
spent the tail end of the trip on the floor with [my friend] and I remember
looking at his eyes. They were wide, wide open. So were we. We were sharing
about everything until late into the night. We still do that now, more than
we ever really did before [the X]." It was an emotionally satisfying, but
ephemeral experience. "I never felt that way again on it," he says.

This past New Year's, Will took MDMA with some friends. How was it? "It was
fine."

The alternative to decreased effect is increased consumption, which has its
own problems. "I had to take more and more to have the same effect," says
Celeste, an engineer. She was living with someone who had a pound of pure
MDMA in powder form and "did it all the time"--as many as three or four
hits, snorted or eaten, in a sitting.

"I would do it every week. That lasted for about a summer. I don't really
remember having any problems," says Celeste, who tapered off her usage and
doesn't think the experience did her any harm. "When I think about times in
my life when I was not as stable as I am now, times when I didn't feel
myself or I was really depressed, I might have pointed to X as the factor.

But now I feel fine, and it's hard for me to point at X and blame it for my
problems."

But Celeste saw enough about what Ecstacy could do to others to frighten
her about its long-term effects. "Some people I was with would have
definite reality lapses after doing a lot of X over a long period. Talking
to statues and trees. Just from what they were doing it was obvious that
they were not in reality at all."

For those who overreach while searching for a state of bliss, the only
discovery is clingy, frenetic limbo. "After a while it just made me all
speedy and creepy-crawly," says Tim, whose life list of drug usage reads
like a young Keith Richards'. "I figure if I'm gonna do something that
makes me all edgy I'll just do coke. At least then you don't wanna touch
everybody."

For some, Ecstacy is a home away from home. One they can't go back to. "It
gets out of control though, for a lot of people," says Will, with the
thousand-yard stare. "Some clean themselves up, some get help, some get
screwed over by the drug," he says. Some he'll never talk to again.

"They were just chasing this idea of ecstasy," he says. "But it's
artificial. It's fleeting. A lot of people don't realize that, or don't
want to. You gotta be aware that you're under the influence of a drug and
no matter how good it feels it isn't real, y'know. It won't last."