ECSTASY SEIZURES SOAR AS USE INCREASES

NEW YORK -- Some of the small tablets are shaped like the familiar Playboy
magazine rabbit ears and are known as Bunnies. Others are called Buddhas
because they bear his likeness. Some are stamped with the Nike swoosh, a
shamrock or Dino the Dinosaur.

All are part of an alarming explosion in MDMA, the synthetic psychoactive
drug called Ecstasy.

Seizures of the tablets, which have become a cult drug among teen-agers in
nightclubs, have increased 450 percent between 1998 and 1999, a federal law
enforcement official said. The U.S. Customs Service is projecting a 1,500
percent increase this year from last.

Salvatore Gravano, the Mafia turncoat arrested Thursday in Arizona, was
charged with financing a ring that sold 20,000 to 25,000 tablets of the drug
a week. But those sales figures pale in comparison with those of an
organization shut down one day earlier in New York: Police said they
arrested several Israelis who were selling 100,000 tablets weekly.

The federal Drug Enforcement Administration, in an intelligence paper issued
this month, reported widespread use of the drug "within virtually every city
in the United States," including rural areas.

Energizing and mildly hallucinogenic, the drug was first patented in Germany
in 1912 as a potential appetite suppressant. It is similar to LSD, but it
also stimulates the nervous system like speed, at the same time creating a
sense of well-being, euphoria and empathy.

Because it reduces inhibitions and suppresses the need to eat or sleep, it
gets those who use it through hours and sometimes days of dancing, concerts
or other activities. One pill's effects can last up to six hours, but users
build up a tolerance, and an overdose can cause accelerated heartbeat, high
blood pressure, fainting, muscle cramps or panic attacks.

Raymond Kelly, the commissioner of customs, said the increase in demand for
the drug was caused by "innovative marketing."

"They have been pushing it as something that gives you a relatively painless
high with relatively little downside," he said. But, he said, its reputation
was not based on reality. "There are all sorts of horror stories," he said.

On Web sites and Internet chat rooms, testimonials praise the drug as
everything from a personal growth tool to a means to enhance sexual
sensitivity. But Kelly and others cited an increase in emergency room
mentions of the drug in federal Drug Abuse Warning Network reports, to 637
in 1997, the latest year statistics were available, from 68 in 1993.

Kelly said that Customs Service seizures have grown from 350,000 pills in
1997 to 750,000 in 1998, 3.5 million in 1999 and 2.9 million in just the
first two months of this year.

"We are projecting seizures of up to 7 to 8 million pills this year," he
said, adding that in March the service will begin training 13 dogs to sniff
out the drug.

Lewis Rice Jr., the special agent in charge of the DEA's New York division,
said there is one powerful, driving force behind the stunning growth in the
drug's popularity: profit.

The drug is produced for pennies, mostly in Belgium and the Netherlands,
where it is sold for as little as 50 cents, said Rice.

Agents have seen the tablets selling wholesale in the United States for
between $6.50 and $8 and then being sold in clubs for $20 to $25 in New
York. In smaller cities, like Nashville, college students say they buy the
drug for $30.