NO FUTURE FALLING IN LOVE WITH ECSTASY

The Love Drug has plenty to hate about it.

But first you have to know something.

"I have recently had parents of young adults in their 20s come in. They
were wondering about (Ecstasy)," said Wendy McCarty, project director at
the Central Nebraska Council on Alcoholism. "One woman's daughter had been
telling her that Ecstasy was, 'Really OK, Mom. It just makes you feel good.
It doesn't hurt you.'"

What you should know is that Ecstasy, known on the street as the Love Drug,
Rolls, E, the Hug Drug and XTC and in the lab as
methylenedioxymethamphetamine or MDMA, has drawn the attention of McCarty
and others partly because it kills brain cells like April melts snow -- and
partly because of marketing.

What worries McCarty is the future, even though some Central Nebraska
parents are asking questions now about a drug not often seen in Central
Nebraska. Ecstasy remains a big-city high where young people use it at
all-night dance marathons called raves and when trolling the club scene.

Steve Jensen of the St. Francis Drug and Alcohol Treatment Center agrees.
"We've only seen sporadic use around here. We have treated people who have
used it, usually from out of state," he said.

In August 2000, the Nebraska State Patrol made a bust near Gibbon where
they found 1,900 tablets of Ecstasy, which retails on the street at $20 to
$25 a hit.

A Killing Cousin

Lt. Mike Phinney of the State Patrol said they too haven't seen much
Ecstasy use, but in the netherworld of drugs, that could mean little. "We
don't have raves here, but that doesn't mean kids from Hastings, Kearney
and Grand Island shouldn't be aware of it."

According to McCarty, Kearney has held a town-hall meeting on Ecstasy
similar to Grand Island's meeting several years ago concerning meth use here.

For the record, E is a killing cousin of meth in that their chemical
properties are similar (although Ecstasy throws in a little hallucinogen),
and the price structure is also on a par with Central Nebraska's most
serious drug curse. Ecstasy's intense high is a result of your brain
opening the serotonin floodgates, which guard the regulation of mood and pain.

Ecstasy turns kids' inhibitions upside down, creating a two-to six- hour
world where teens seemingly handle acceptance and intimacy (not the age
group's strong suits) with ease. After a hit of E, they like everybody,
hence a love and hug drug.

For good measure, the drug can also raise body temps to 110 degrees, a
factor in huge, stuffy warehouses where raves are commonly held; it causes
involuntary jaw clenching so pacifiers are de rigueur at raves; plus it can
induce the usual life-threatening problems in heart rate, blood pressure
and dehydration. According to the Midwest office of National Drug Control
Policy, Ecstasy deaths occur most often when users mix Ecstasy with other
drugs or when they are overcome by heatstroke after dancing for hours.

Nothing Of The Sort

Rave promoters and clever dealers have marketed Ecstasy as a harmless high
that makes the music better, your circle of touchy-feely best friends wider
and your moves on the dance floor endless. They also stamp their colorful E
tabs with logos such as the Nike swoosh or clever graphics.

Of course, the fine print reads more like a hype's handbook of disorder. By
the time the rave is busted or the music dies, Ecstasy users can face
anxiety, paranoia, depression, violent outbursts, trouble sleeping, memory
loss and confusion.

MDMA works on the corpus delicti too. "You have a really bad headache
afterward," Jensen said.

Aside from squeezing the life out of brain cells and making chronic users
future idiots, the Hug Drug can also cause permanent damage to the liver
and kidney.

All of which has McCarty concerned. "These rave organizers promote them as
alcohol-free. They don't tell (parents) about all this Ecstasy."

Nor do they mention that, according to the Partnership for a Drug-Free
America, 2.8 million teens have used Ecstasy, which is more than have tried
cocaine, crack and heroin. Experimentation with the drug is up more than 70
percent in the last three years.

These are not hope-to-die junkies, either. According to Jensen it is a
unique and powerful drug, used almost exclusively by young people and is
anything but the harmless high the ad campaign on the street says it is.

And for parents here -- miles from raves and white hot dance clubs? A
little knowledge can confirm that the Love Drug is nothing of the sort.