DANGER A RELATIVE CONCEPT

The Partnership for a Drug-Free America says use of the so-called club drug
Ecstasy is rising among American teen-agers because many of them are
unaware of its dangers.

That's a crock.

Danger is a relative concept. Teen-agers, not unlike their elders, just
don't give a lot of consideration to the possibility that bad things can
happen to them. It's the NIMBY principle in the extreme.

Youthful smokers think no more about developing cancer or respiratory
ailments or premature wrinkles than sun bunnies do about skin cancer or
joggers do about cardiac arrest. These are misfortunes that befall other
people.

John Walters, director of the White House drug policy office, says
anti-drug officials are trying to counter an impression among teens that
Ecstasy is harmless, and thus the anti-Ecstasy campaign "is about heading
off a problem before it gets out of control."

Wish him luck. He's not only fighting the NIMBY mindset that afflicts all
of us in one way or another, he's fighting "experts" who view such
undertakings as knee-jerk, alarmist propaganda. We who survived the Timothy
Leary/Dr. Feelgood era of the Sixties know better--or ought to.

Take, for instance, Mark A.R. Kleiman, director of something called the
drug policy analysis program at the University of California at Los
Angeles, who was not impressed with how two grieving parents opted to
discourage Ecstasy use.

I have no idea how these parents came to know how many times their daughter
used Ecstasy, but does it really matter? It only took once to kill her. And
yet Kleiman, a presumed "expert" in this field or a related one, was struck
only by the "dishonesty" of the parents' approach.

Although long-term use can be fatal, he opined, there is only limited
evidence that a single use is damaging.

"It's not a very fatal drug," he pooh-poohed. Well, it certainly was for
Danielle Heird.

Ecstasy is the popular name of what scientists commonly refer to as MDMA,
the acronym for 3, 4-Methylenedioxy-methamphetamine. A Schedule I
synthetic, psychoactive drug, it possesses both stimulant and
hallucinogenic properties. Its chemical variations include the stimulant
amphetamine or methamphetamine and a hallucinogen, most often mescaline.

Although its use is not thought to be as widespread as many other
controlled substances, an organization known as Narconon of Northern
California reports that its use increased by at least 500 percent over a
five-year period.

Nationwide, according to the Drug Abuse Warning Network, hospital emergency
room reports involving MDMA rose dramatically between 1993 and 1999--from
70 to 2,850. Seizures of MDMA tablets submitted to DEA laboratories rose
from 196 in 1993 to 143,600 in 1998. Seizures from January through May
1999, the latest figures I could find, totaled more than 216,300 MDMA tablets.

The facts about this "not very fatal drug" are still being gathered, but we
do know that in some users Ecstasy produces empathy, decreased anxiety,
relaxation and heightened senses. It also suppresses appetite, thirst and
the need to sleep. Because of this, in combination with dancing and
increased activity, it can cause severe dehydration and exhaustion.

Adverse effects include nausea, cold sweats, chills, hallucinations,
increased body temperature, tremors, teeth clenching, double vision and
muscle cramps. Among possible long-term after-effects are anxiety, paranoia
and depression.

Narconon reports that a 1998 study by the National Institute of Mental
Health found that the use of MDMA severely damaged the neurons in the brain
that transmit seratonin, the chemical that is used in learning, sleep and
integration of emotion, and concluded that even recreational users might be
at risk of developing permanent damage that can manifest depression,
anxiety, memory loss and neuropsychotic disorders.

Of course, they don't know for sure. But would it really matter if they
did? Sadly, some segment of each generation always has to learn the hard way.