U.N. body warns of longterm ecstasy effects

VIENNA (Reuter) The United Nations drug agency Wednesday warned of the
dangers of using party drugs such as Ecstasy and said potentially damaging
longterm effects to regular users were not yet known.

``Ecstasy is not a safe or benign substance. It's a very strong and
mindaltering substance,'' Hamid Ghodse, president of the Viennabased
International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), told a news conference.

``We do not know what will happen to the brains of regular users (of Ecstasy)
in 20 years' time,'' he added.

Ghodse, an Iranian psychiatrist, accused the media of playing down the
sideeffects of Ecstasy, which he said were anything but harmless.

``To tell people that if you have plenty of water and the drug is tested to
be pure you are safe is the wrong message,'' he said.

The amphetamine derivative MDMA, known as Ecstasy, is a strong substance
which works directly on brain cells and the heart so that a single tablet can
kill a healthy young person, as happened recently in the case of an
18yearold British girl, he added.

Ghodse said Ecstasy abuse had risen dramatically.

In Austria alone there were many thousands of consumers, he said, but
declined to estimate how many young people in Europe take the drug to help
them dance through the night.

The drug agency said the rise in police seizures of the drug in Europe in the
past few years pointed to a growing demand. The number of emergency room
cases related to synthetic drugs had also risen.

Most MDMA is produced in the Netherlands, according to the ICNB. Ecstasy and
other designer drugs are also being produced in secret laboratories in Poland
and, to a lesser extent, in other Eastern European countries.