PARENTS ARE UNAWARE OF ECSTASY RISK

More American teenagers are using Ecstasy, but parents remain clueless
about the drug's deadly risks and accessibility, a new report says.

Developed in the early 1900s as a possible diet pill, Ecstasy burst onto
the nightclub scene in the mid-1980s and quickly became "the rave
generation's cocaine.'' Raves are all-night dance parties.

Nearly 12 percent of seventh-through 12th-graders report that they have
used Ecstasy at least once, up 5 percentage points since 1999. But even
though 92 percent of adults know that the drug exists, only 1 percent of
them believe their child is among the 2.9 million teens who have tried it,
according to the national survey.

The gap between the facts and perception has never been so obvious, says
Steve Pasierb, president and CEO of the Partnership for a Drug-Free
America. The New York-based non-profit tracks teens' and parents' attitudes
about drugs and produces anti-drug ads.

For the Ecstasy survey, the group randomly polled 1,219 parents across the
country in December and January.

"The level of denial is pretty drastic here,'' Pasierb says.

The reasons, researchers say, range from Ecstasy's relative newness to the
public to parents' reluctance to participate in their children's lives to
the drug's false reputation as a low-risk and cheap and pleasurable high.

Also known as the hug drug, love drug, X, E, XTC, Roll, Adam and Bean, this
synthetic psychoactive stimulant boosts energy and self-confidence. It
brings feelings of euphoric empathy and intimacy. Ecstasy helps young
people dance all night, but doctors say the drug also can dramatically
increase body temperature and blood pressure and cause muscle breakdown. It
also can cause heart and kidney failure. Laboratory studies have shown that
Ecstasy can damage the brain and make even a one-night user prone to
Parkinson's and depression.

Even so, the survey found that 60 percent of parents still aren't aware of
Ecstasy's nature, 49 percent don't know of its effects and 41 percent doubt
their son or daughter can easily obtain it.

But they are wrong, experts say. "It's as available at house and
neighborhood parties as in raves,'' Pasierb says. "It's now in the drug
pipeline.''