THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY FOR YOUNG TEENAGERS

One Pill, Two Pill, Three Pill, Four, Five Pill, Six Pill, Seven Pill, Floor."

Turn to page 372 in The Concise Oxford Dictionary and there it is,
sandwiched somewhere between 'economy' and 'ecstatic' - the word 'ecstasy'.

The wordsmiths who laboured over definitions added this behind the
seven-lettered word -1. An overwhelming feeling of joy and rapture.
2. A trancelike state. 3.Methylenedioxymethamphetamine, a powerful
stimulant and hallucinatory drug (MDMA).

On the streets of our cities, kids and dealers label the drug 'E' or
XTC, some call it euphoria or love doves.

It gives users a 'high' that can last as long as from four to six hours.

That's long enough for the duration of a teen dance when you can
loosen up, get rid of those post-pubescent teenybopper inhibitions
and feel warm and fuzzy all over.

At five bucks a pill, ecstasy is the drug of choice for many teens
hanging out at the dance scene and let's face it, where there's
demand, there you'll find a dealer.

Cassie Williams was hanging out at The West Edmonton Mall last week
with her teen friend Ashley Morin, they had come for the Mall's Rock
N' Ride Party.

Parties and drugs are like Siamese twins in the youth culture, you
can't have one without the other, and for Ashley and Cassie, $50
spent on 12 ecstasy pills would make the night one of those "wasn't
that a party" nights.

Problem was both kids are only 14, they haven't really been around
the block, don't know much about the labs where guys and gals as
twisted as a corkscrews make ecstasy.

Guys and gals should I say who don't give a hoot if kids overdose and die.

No, drug labs whether they be in this country or abroad are filled
with callous, cold-blooded criminals, racketeers and parasites who
profit from the inner pain in the hearts of kids like Ashley and
Cassie, pain that drives kids into the world of 'quick fix' street drugs.

Cassie Williams looks like a fun-loving kid. Her long blond hair
tipped with red borders a smile as wide as the Ottawa River.

She looks like the kind of kid a guy would love to call his daughter
- - a grandpa, his granddaughter, but she's just a kid, short on wisdom
and street smarts, just a tad, or more than a tad naive, she's only
been around after all for less than 170 months, and "Gee!", to
rephrase a line from songster Cindy Lauper, "Kids just want to have fun!"

That's the blinder isn't it? The pursuit of fun in the North American
climate of hedonism blinds you to so much - such as, when you buy
some ecstasy pills you don't exactly know what you're buying, for
some dealers mix the man-made drug with other drugs.

Kids like Ashley and Cassie often stuff drugs down their bras so they
can pass security.

As the two headed into the mall's Rock N' Ride dance party last week
they downed six pills apiece, $25 to get a real four-hour high.

At some point, Cassie began to shake and convulse, the shaking went
on non-stop, just minutes before the two elementary junior high
school students overdosed.

Both girls were whisked to the hospital where Cassie was put on life support.

Last Saturday they took 14-year-old Cassie Williams off life support
- - and that was it, game over - at 14.

Cassie's friend Ashley survived - amazingly!

Don't expect a wreath at this funeral from a drug dealer or a lab
rat, those who make the stuff, don't expect a sympathy card from the
guy who traffics this stuff, you know, the guy who drives around in
that shiny 75 grand automobile, it just ain't coming, empathy and
drug dealing are about as far apart as North America and the moon.

But make no mistake about it, there's blood on the hands of more than
one drug dealer in the city where you live, the teen blood of kids
like Cassie Williams, kids who were just kids, kids who thought that
this would be a great high, but it wasn't all ecstasy, far from it,
it was mostly agony, an agony that will take a long time to go away
for those the teen leaves behind. Cassie William's casket proves that
beyond any shadow of a doubt!