NEW-BREED DRUG DEALERS JUST LIKE 'KIDS NEXT DOOR'

Police describe a new breed of drug dealer as the kid-next-door who
sells at all-night parties. Forget the image of a pusher in a dark
alley selling evil in a needle.

Police say the stereotypical sellers of the so-called designer drugs,
such as ecstasy, liquid ecstasy and crystal meth, are the young and
the beautiful.

"It's one thing that amazes us," said RCMP Corporal John Rae, of the
Toronto North Detachment Drug Section. "They're all the boy-next-door,
the girl-next-door, young and good-looking ... They're not what you
consider your typical street drug person who is hardened by life ...

"That's the scary part. You go to a rave and there's your average kid,
going to school and living at home. The new dealers are coming out
from the new phenomenon."

Two Hamilton teenagers, 16 and 17, have been charged with importing
$1.2 million of ecstasy pills after they were arrested with more than
34,000 pills strapped to their legs at the Toronto airport last week.
They were returning from a one-week trip to Paris.

Ecstasy, or MDMA, is a stimulant with some hallucinogenic properties
and usually comes in a tablet. The high kicks in about 30 minutes
after ingestion and lasts six to eight hours. It's sold for about $30
to $40 a tab.

The drug bust is significant because of both its size and the age of
the people accused.

Police won't comment on the teens who have been charged, but
Hamilton-Wentworth Detective Sergeant Rick Wills said it's not wise
to paint a picture of them as hardened criminals.

"I would suggest this was more of an opportunistic thing," Wills said.
"It's greed and the opportunity (that) lures these kids into something
like this."

Rae said most small-time traffickers need no persuasive recruiting.
"You get into that subculture and it's not hard. It's like, 'Here's
five (pills) -- sell three and pay for your night out.' It's easy to
get into the trafficking. It's not the older people who are coming out
saying, 'Here, poor young offender, do it.' No, no. It's starting from
within the user group."

And there's a growing market for it. Police estimate 90 per cent of
ecstasy bought here is imported. They think only 10 per cent is
manufactured in makeshift labs.

Last week's single bust is almost three times that of the ecstasy
seized at the airport all last year. The bust was the fourth this year
at the airport -- bringing the total amount of ecstasy seized since
Jan. 15 to more than 72,800 hits worth more than $2.5 million.

Rae said youth and lack of experience make the mules (drug carriers)
easier to apprehend.

"They don't have the background of the old-time coke, pot and hash
traffickers (who) are a cagey old bunch. But the new rave crowd is
certainly different. Naive is the best way to describe them."

Anne Kalvik, pharmacist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health
who has studied ecstasy, said the drug can have many adverse
side-effects -- including the danger of other drugs being mixed with
the MDMA.

Ecstasy can be cut with heroin or cocaine or diluted with other
substances that the raver unknowingly ingests. Even on its own, Kalvik
said, ecstasy is dangerous.

"It's got this false reputation of being a drug that gives you high
sociability and allows you to have a better time at raves. But, with
some people, it can cause ... death."

Ecstasy disrupts the body's internal heating. When the drug is
combined with the hours of nonstop dancing at raves, it can cause the
person to overheat and go into convulsions or collapse.

Kalvik said some users also have medical conditions they aren't aware
of, which can also cause an adverse reaction. While the drug gives
many increased energy, sociability and confidence, Kalvik said
everyone runs the risk of also experiencing nausea, jaw clenching,
insomnia, weight loss, seizure and stroke. Kalvik said the drug is so
new that not much is known about long-term effects. "It's a pretty big
risk to take," she said. "Young people don't think far down the road
but things can happen."

Warnings from experts seem to be falling on deaf ears. Use of the drug
has increased since it first emerged in the late 1980s.

Dr. Ed Adlaf, co-author of the Ontario Student Drug Use Survey, said
ecstasy barely registered in the 1991 and 1993 surveys.

"Under 1 per cent (of students were using it) in 1991 and 1993," he
said. "But since that time, there has been a reasonable increase. In
1999, almost 5 per cent of students reported using ecstasy at least
once."

While Adlaf said that percentage may seem small, 5 per cent represents
roughly 20,000 students across Ontario. But Adlaf said most students
who reported using the drug weren't regular ecstasy users.

But Rosemary Hilbert, social worker with the Alcohol and Gambling
services at the Hamilton-Wentworth public health department, said
ecstasy has been a concern for her department for three years. She
said ecstasy often isn't the only problem. It's usually an indication
that other drugs are being used as well.