ECSTASY HAS APPEARED IN GREENWOOD

Ecstasy Has Surfaced In Greenwood, Raising Concern By Authorities.

Known as MDMA or 3-4 methylenedioxymethamphetamine, Ecstasy is a
synthetic, psychoactive drug chemically similar to the stimulant
methamphetamine and the hallucinogen mescaline.

Sgt. Demetice Bedell of the narcotics division in the Greenwood
Police Department warned those gathered at the monthly meeting of the
Ward 4 Neighborhood Watch on Monday night.

Merck Company first synthesized MDMA in 1912 and patented the drug
two years later when researchers stumbled across it while researching
drugs to stop external bleeding.

During the 1950s, the U.S. government tested it as a truth serum as
part of the chemical warfare efforts by the CIA and the Army.

But the first recreational use was in the 1960s. It caught on during
the 1980s in Texas and took the name Ecstasy.

Bedell labeled Ecstasy as a relatively new drug designed "for a
younger crowd instead of an older crowd. If we don't get a handle on
it, certain things are going to happen. It will be devastating."

Ecstacy looks like children's aspirin tablets and can come in many
colors. Some of the pills have a recognizable logo on them, for
example, something akin to the Playboy bunny or Mitsubishi and Ford
trademarks, Bedell explained.

The pills cost of between $20 and $25 each on the street, Bedell said.

Generally, the pills are swallowed or the white crystalline powder
may be snorted, injected or smoked. The National Institute for Health
describes the first effects of Ecstasy as "very fast, within half an
hour of consumption."

The individual reaches a plateau after that that lasts for an hour
and within two hours symptoms of intoxication, which result in a loss
of inhibitions, are gone.

The physical symptoms include an increased heart rate, and hyper
nervousness and alertness similar to an amphetamine. For men the drug
may have the same effects as Viagra, according to recent NIH studies.

The drug is considered a party drug and is particularly fashionable
with young men.

"One, it gives them the same feeling as Viagra. It gives them the
same potency as that," Bedell said. "Two, it's water soluble so they
can crunch it up and put it into a girl's drink. What does that mean?
It means we've got a serious problem on our hands."

Within five minutes of ingesting ecstacy, a women gets the feeling
that the man "is really turning her on, when actually it's the drug," he said.

"She seems like she's having this good time with this perfect
stranger," and people who are attending the party don't see anything
unusual, Bedell said.

"She's laughing out, she's giggling, she's having a good time. Later
on, when she realizes what happened, it's too late," he said.

Once the man takes her from the party the trouble is only beginning,
Bedell said.

"She'll wake up in the back seat of a car with no clothes on. She'll
wake up in a hotel room with her clothes off in a corner, and she
doesn't know how she got there," he said.

The woman, who might have been raped, cannot describe anything that
went on because ecstacy blocks out short-term memory, Bedell said.

"She can't tell who it was. When she got there. All everybody is
going to say, when we go back to the party for our interviews, is
say, 'Hey, she left with the guy and was having a good time. How can
she be raped? She left there with him,'" he said.

A case like this has already occurred in Greenwood, Bedell said.

Three hours after ingestion, Ecstacy leaves the system, so it's very
difficult to trace - except through DNA analysis using a sample of
the victim's hair.

More than likely, the community might say the woman is lying.

The problems with ecstacy will be covered in-depth at a Basic
Narcotics for Parents Workshop, scheduled for noon at Turner Chapel
African-Methodist-Episcopal Church, at 717 Walthall St. on March 25.

The workshop, which has been put together with the assistance of the
Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics, is intended to inform adults of the
drugs currently available on the street, Bedell said.

For more information on the narcotics workshop, call Bedell at 453-3311.