ECSTASY AND AGONY

The cool millennium partygoer will be drug-free British use of the
mood-changing "dance drug", Ecstasy, is thought to have levelled off
in the past year or two, if only for the unnerving reason that it is
being overtaken by the "recreational" use of ever cheaper cocaine in
the nation's nightclubs. But that trend could be reversed during the
millennial celebrations that start tonight.

Police have seized more synthetic drugs - Ecstasy and speed - entering
the UK in the past three months alone than they did in the whole of
1998, suggesting that the country is being flooded with hastily
produced supplies, some dangerously strong, for the much-hyped
millennial party season.

For that reason in particular, this weekend is therefore the most
unwise of times for young people to fall into the trap of taking
Ecstasy or any other drug.

Ecstasy's seeming attractions, for both manufacturer and user, have
put it at the centre of a youth drug explosion since the 1980s. Half a
million people a week now take it throughout Europe and America.
Cheap, easy to make and transport, modern synthetic drugs have blurred
old distinctions between "hard" and "soft" drugs.

Many young recreational users believe it can be combined harmlessly
with a high-speed clubbing lifestyle.

They may have been told that excessive use carries health
risks.

But since they are not, by and large, choosing the marginalised
lifestyle of the hard-drug junkie, users of synthetic drugs treat
health warnings no more seriously than smokers do those printed on
their cigarette packets.

Yet the "benefits" of modern synthetic drugs are illusions as
dangerous as those that ever lured anyone to take any mind-altering
substance.

Although sudden deaths through synthetic drug use are relatively rare,
recent research into their long-term effects (still at a rudimentary
stage) indicates some horrifying risks.

One study, published in October in The Lancet, found that using
Ecstasy greatly increases the likelihood of giving birth to malformed
babies.

Other research shows that Ecstasy causes permanent damage to serotonin
production in non-human primates, triggering clinical depression; the
same could yet be found to be true of humans beings.

Such evidence should help to destroy cherished teen illusions that
Ecstasy or speed can be taken without inflicting the long-term
punishment on the human body that older drugs, whose harmful effects
are better documented, are known to cause.

The only advice that makes sense is to abstain from all drug use at
all times.

Users may be less likely to be caught this weekend; the police say
they will be too busy to deal with minor drug offences.

But self-policing makes especially good sense in the holiday weekend
to come. With drug manufacturers keen to cash in on the party
atmosphere, there is less quality control than ever in the making of
synthetic drugs seized recently by police; the National Criminal
Intelligence Service gives warning that some millennial pills may be
four times more powerful than usual.

The danger of taking bad Ecstasy was illustrated by Leah Betts, who
died in November 1995 at her 18th birthday party.

To risk taking even a single such pill this weekend, when National
Health Service emergency beds are in catastrophically short supply,
would be the height of suicidal folly.