Pubdate: Mon, 31 Jan 2000
Source: Plain Dealer, The (OH)
Copyright: 2000 The Plain Dealer
Contact:  1801 Superior Ave., Cleveland, OH 44114
Website: http://www.cleveland.com/news/
Forum: http://forums.cleveland.com/index.html
Author: Corwin A. Thomas, Plain Dealer Reporter

DEADLY, HOMEMADE DRUG ECSTASY IS MAKING THE AREA'S PARTY SCENE

The club is packed. Jammed. It's 1:35 a.m. and the line outside
is long.

One step inside, the scene turns into a culture of sorts. Most people
are dressed in black. Everyone hugs everyone. The music is loud,
hypnotic. You can't help but bob your head. It's techno music, that
stuff that keeps you dancing until the break of dawn - especially if
you're on ecstasy.

On June 24, 1999, Charles Thomas Marfisi, a healthy 22-year-old,
collapsed and died in a South Euclid driveway. No one knew what killed
him. Not police. Not his parents.

It wasn't until two days later - after Marfisi's family told police he
was experimenting with a drug called ecstasy - that the mystery was
solved. Cuyahoga County Coroner Elizabeth K. Balraj ruled that Marfisi
died of an overdose of the drug. Ecstasy has become increasingly
popular among teenagers and young adults at nightclubs and "rave"
parties. But it was the first time anyone at South Euclid's Police

Department had heard of the drug. The Marfisis, too.

They are among a growing number of Northeast Ohioans just learning
about ecstasy - usually after someone gets sick or dies. The drug is
particularly troubling because it is manufactured in homemade labs.
Different recipes posted on the Internet make the drug's composition
inexact and sometimes lethal.

Its forms - pill and clear liquid - make it easy to slip into a drink.
It has been used as a "date rape" drug that can incapacitate women,
leaving them vulnerable to sexual assault, said local law enforcement
officials.

According to Cuyahoga County Coroner Elizabeth Balraj, Marfisi was the
second person in Cuyahoga County to die of an overdose of ecstasy. The
first was Kevin D. Wilson, a 22-year-old Solon man who died in October
1998.

And cases such as these are drawing attention to the
drug:

On New Year's Day, Youngstown State University freshman Heather
Woodard, 18, died after using ecstasy at an Akron party the night
before. Summit County Medical Examiner Marvin Platt ruled that the
drug caused a heart attack.

Just before Christmas, the Lorain County Drug Task Force seized about
200 pills, one of 15 cases it handled in 1999.

In October, Medina teenager Seth Hill was sentenced to two years in
jail for giving ecstasy to Jessica Campobasso, 19, who got sick after
drinking water spiked with the drug, not knowing its effects.

Last April in Painesville, seven people were hospitalized, one in
critical condition, after drinking ecstasy.

But most of the incidents don't make the news.

Within the last six months, Lutheran Hospital, near the Flats
entertainment district, has treated two to three people a weekend who
have overdosed on ecstasy, said spokeswoman Nancy Mauer.

"It’s particularly common here because of the Flats," Mauer
said.

It’s hot now. The windows are fogged. Dancing. Drinking. Conversation.
All are flowing. Except that one girl in the black thigh-length dress
with the black knee-high boots. She seems ill. Her head is in her lap.
Some dude is rubbing her shoulders. Is she OK? She throws her head up.
Back to the dance floor she goes.

The Flats, with its concentration of nightclubs, is a hot spot
for ecstasy use, police said.

Marfisi, who attended Ohio State University, was a frequent visitor
there and was introduced to the drug in the clubs and at all-night
rave parties, his parents said.

Coupled with the smoke and the hypnotic music, the drug can be
entrancing.

Clutching bottles of water, the patrons roam the club. Some
dance.

Others swig. Some do both.

But is that water in those bottles?

According to police, that’s how liquid ecstasy is concealed. The
liquid is colorless and odorless.

Some claim ecstasy produces the ultimate high, enabling them to dance
until the break of dawn. Others say "rolling," the high associated
with using ecstasy, is the scariest thing they have ever experienced.

"You can tell when someone is taking [ecstasy]. Their eyes are dilated
and they’re ultra-affectionate," said a local DJ who asked to remain
anonymous.

"It’s the LSD of the’90s," he said. "With every generation there’s a
drug that can be made at home. I’ve done it. And I know where it’s

done. It’s big news when it’s popular, but when people can cut [mix]
it with anything, that can be deadly. The whole scene right now, it
really bugs me."

Ecstasy became popular during the 1980s, first in Europe. Once used as
an appetite suppressant and a food supplement, some forms of ecstasy
have become so available that anyone can buy the ingredients over the
Internet.

Downtown Cleveland club owners don’t deny that ecstasy is used by
their patrons. They said they do everything they can to deter the use
of the drug.

Mark DiCelle, an attorney for Wish, said the W. 6th St. club has
a zero-tolerance policy toward drugs and employs uniformed police
officers to enforce it.

"The popular clubs draw a more hip crowd, and with that comes the
drugs," DiCelle said. "We want to prevent any kind of substance abuse.
We don’t want that rumor attached to us."

But it’s clear ecstasy is in the clubs.

An employee who has worked at several downtown nightclubs said he is
stopping people and confiscating their water bottles because he
suspects they’re spiked with a $50 dose of ecstasy.

"People want to kill me if I tell them that they can’t take it in or
out," he said.

Hey, do you know where I can get some ecstasy? asked the guy. With a
cold stare, the other man said, "If I run into anyone, I’ll send them
your way."

"Hey, do you know where I can score some ‘E’?"

"No," said another.

"Hey, do you know where I can get some ‘E’?"

"Dude, you better stop asking around, there’re undercover cops
here."

"How do you know?"

"Trust me."

It’s not just young adults like Marfisi using or experimenting with
ecstasy. Ecstasy use among high school teenagers has increased,
according to a national study called Monitoring the Future, conducted
at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research.

The study said ecstasy use among high school seniors increased 60
percent last year.

"While the use of this drug has been declining since we first measured
it in 1996, for some reason it made a resurgence in 1999," said Lloyd
D. Johnston, a principal investigator in the study.

"A number of deaths associated with GHB [a form of ecstasy] have
resulted from a person putting the drug into another person’s drink
without their knowledge. But clearly it is a very dangerous drug, and
the mounting accidental death toll among young people proves it,"
Johnston said.

There is little data on the number of deaths caused by ecstasy in the
United States. However, in England, where there has been more research
on the drug’s effect, there have been at least 70 deaths attributed to
its use in the past decade.

Evidence also indicates ecstasy is showing up around and on college
campuses. Earlier this month, two Kent State University students were
charged with possessing and selling ecstasy. More than 200 pills, drug
scales, drug packages and cash were confiscated by the Western Portage
Drug Task Force. Kent police said the incident was their first
involving ecstasy.

U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents say the biggest ecstasy
bust in the state came last July in Athens. Agents arrested Meghan

Honert, a 26-year-old Ohio University student pursuing a graduate
degree in chemistry. She was charged with attempting to manufacture
ecstasy in the basement of her house.

Chris Bik, the agent in charge of the DEA in Ohio, said that was the
first ecstasy lab seized in the state.

The DEA also arrested four men for allegedly smuggling ecstasy from
Europe to Ohio. Bik said the men were outside a house in Columbus when
they were caught trying to recover 25,000 pills hidden in cars they
had shipped from Germany.

Recognizing ecstasy as a growing problem, both the Ohio House and
Senate have approved a bill that will provide stricter laws against
the use, sale and possession of ecstasy. The maximum penalty for the
most serious offense, aggravated trafficking of the drug, would rise
from 18 months to five years.

"These drugs have really taken off in the state," said Tim Benedict,
assistant executive director of the State Board of Pharmacy. Benedict
said he first heard of ecstasy a year and a half ago, but within the
last nine months it has really come on.

"Now I get calls from the police all the time," he
said.

Gov. Bob Taft is expected to sign the bill soon.

It won’t be soon enough for the family of Charles Marfisi. They still
don’t know exactly when or where he ingested the fatal dose. The pain
lingers.

Especially for Thomas Marfisi, Charles’ father.

"I know I can’t bring him back," said Marfisi’s father, wiping away
tears of anger as he stood recently in the middle of his living room.
"But if one kid can be saved from this crap ... you know? No parent
should have to go through what we’ve been through."
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