Pubdate: Mon, 13 Mar 2000
Source: Time Magazine (US)
Copyright: 2000 Time Inc.
Contact:  Time Magazine Letters, Time & Life Bldg., Rockefeller Center, NY, 
NY 10020
Fax: (212) 522-8949
Website: http://www.time.com/
Author: John Cloud
Bookmarks: For ecstasy items http://www.mapinc.org/mdma.htm
For: rave items http://www.mapinc.org/raves.htm

IT'S ALL THE RAVE

SUDDENLY PEOPLE ALL OVER THE country are talking about "ecstasy" as if it 
were something other than what an eight-year-old feels at Disney World. 
Occasionally the trickle from the fringe to the heartland turns into a 
slipstream, and that seems to have happened with the heart-pulsing, mildly 
psychedelic drug called ecstasy.

To get a sense of just how far and fast "e" has moved into American 
communities in the past year or so, talk to Mark Bradford, a junior at the 
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

"I came to college in the fall of '97," says Bradford, 21, "and I didn't 
even know the word had another meaning." It's not shocking that young Mark 
moved from suburban St. Louis to find drugs on a big campus. But it's a 
little surprising where he encountered ecstasy, a drug first used in the 
1970s by a small group of avant-garde psychotherapists -- at frat houses.

As president of the university's Interfraternity Council, Bradford has 
found himself in meetings with police to discuss frat boys' growing 
appetite for a drug today usually associated with teen ravers, gay men and 
what's left of America's aging hippies, "It's everywhere now," says 
Bradford, who doesn't touch the stuff.

Law enforcers are coming across gigantic stashes of ecstasy in places where 
it was rarely seen. E comes as tablets or capsules, and since December, 
Ohio authorities have seized 25,000 pills in Columbus and 200 more in rural 
Lorain County. In January some 30 people were arrested in New Orleans for 
distributing the drug. Two weeks ago in Providence, R.I., a seven-month 
investigation into ecstasy dealing ended with the arrest of 23. In bigger 
cities, the trade has exploded. In December the U.S. Customs Service 
discovered 100 lbs. of ecstasy shipped from France to the FedEx 
headquarters in Memphis. The agents followed the drug's intended trail to 
L.A. and found a staggering 1.2 million tablets, worth $30 million.

And in an elaborate sting last summer, customs agents and the Drug 
Enforcement Administration helped dismantle a far-flung ecstasy empire run 
by a Canadian based in Amsterdam who allegedly claimed he could sell 
100,000 hits of ecstasy in Miami - in 48 hours.

The mastermind was using pious looking Hasidic Jews as couriers. (Israeli 
organized crime dominates the global trade, according to the U.S. government.)

The busts have had little effect.

Nationwide, customs officers have already seized more ecstasy this fiscal 
year (nearly 3.3 million hits) than in all of last year; in 1997, they 
seized just 400,000 hits. In a 1998 survey, 8% of high school seniors said 
they had tried e, up from 5.8% the year before.

In New York City, according to another survey, 1 in 4 adolescents has tried 
ecstasy. So much e is coming into the U.S. that the Customs Service has 
created a special ecstasy command center and is training 13 more dogs to 
sniff out the drug.

But it took a seizure in Phoenix two weeks ago to generate e's first big 
press coverage in years.

That bust snared Salvatore Gravano, the notorious Mob hit man turned 
government snitch.

Like the Hasidim, Gravano is a rather curious newcomer to the ecstasy culture.

You wouldn't think someone nicknamed "Sammy the Bull" would be peddling the 
so-called hug drug. But simple reasons lie behind the drug's popularity 
among sellers and users.

E is cheap to make, easy to distribute and consume--no dirty syringes or 
passe coke spoons needed, thanks--and it has a reputation for being fun. 
E's euphoria may be chemically manufactured, but it feels no less real to 
users.

It's called the hug drug because it engenders gooey, rather gauche 
expressions of empathy from users.

Last week students at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff reminisced 
about melting into "cuddle puddles," groups of students who massage and 
embrace on the dance floor. The skin feels tremblingly alive when caressed. 
"Feathers, toys, lotions, anything," gurgles "Katrina," 23, a student at 
N.A.U. "A guy touching your skin with a cold drink. It's delicious."

Though often cut with other drugs, ecstasy pills are at least intended to 
be a substance called MDMA (and known only to chemists as 
methylenedioxymethamphetamine). MDMA is pharmacologically related to 
amphetamine and mescaline, but it doesn't produce the nervy, wired feeling 
that typically accompanies speed or the confusion of a purer psychedelic 
like LSD. It doesn't generate addictive cravings. Treatment admissions for 
drugs of its type still account for less than 1% of the total, according to 
Dr. Blanche Frank of the New York State office of alcohol and substance abuse.

In fact, e's popularity is largely due to its lack of noticeable downsides.

It's possible to overdose on ecstasy, but even police agree that the drug 
isn't like heroin or crack in terms of short-term dangers.

Most problems are attributable to dehydration among novices who don't drink 
water.

However, another club drug, GHB - which is also known as "Liquid X" though 
it's chemically unrelated to ecstasy - can easily cause coma and death.

MDMA was first synthesized in 1912, but the big experiments with it didn't 
begin until the 1970s, when a group of psychologists rediscovered it as a 
tool for therapy.

By the early '80s, the drug - still perfectly legal - was sold openly in 
bars and clubs.

But at the time a scientific debate had begun - and continues today about 
whether MDMA can cause long-term brain damage.

In 1985, on the basis of preliminary data about its harmfulness, the DEA 
used its discretionary power to outlaw MDMA. A group of therapists sued, 
but after a three-year court battle, the DEA won the right to ban the drug 
permanently.

So why is it upon us again?

Partly because the debate about MDMA's harmfulness has never been resolved.

Johns Hopkins neurologist George Ricaurte has concluded in several animal 
studies and one human study that MDMA can damage a particular group of the 
brain's nerve cells. But he wants more research.

Last week Ricaurte said his work has never shown that the damage to the 
affected cells has any visible effect on "the vast majority of people who 
have experimented with MDMA." The debate has now found its way onto the 
Web, where the old therapist crowd behind MDMA has become active.

The sites are populated mostly by young users, however, kids who blindly 
praise the drug ("Sammy the Bull rules," wrote one last week).

But the most important reason for e's quick and recent spread into places 
like Denver and Sacramento is that professional criminals have almost 
completely assumed control of its trade.

The life of a typical tablet found in the U.S. begins somewhere along the 
Dutch-Belgian border, a quiet region of pig farmers.

The setting is rural but not far from the Brussels airport.

Manufacturers convert abandoned barns or garden sheds into e factories, 
which can be filthy. "They've been mixing chemicals in dirty cans I 
wouldn't even use for garbage," says Charles De Winter, director of the 
drug section of Belgium's national police force.

These mills aren't mom-and-pop setups, at least not anymore.

"We're seeing more and more hardened criminals," says Cees van Doorn, a 
Dutch organized-crime specialist. They are drawn by the profits. After 
setup the marginal cost of each pill is maybe 10 cents . It's sold in New 
York City clubs for $30,

U.S. Customs commissioner Raymond Kelly says professional criminals in this 
country have brought better management and marketing to the ecstasy trade.

Mobsters have the distribution networks to move millions of pills.

And most pills now come with a catchy brand name-like the "Candy Canes" 
taken in Flagstaff (red and white capsules) or tablets stamped with 
corporate logos.

Users can ask dealers for a good brand by name. Last year's "Mitsubishis," 
for instance, were hugely popular because they seemed to have an extra kick 
of speed.

This winter's "AOLS," however, were duds.

What is the future of ecstasy?

Officials in the Low Countries are cracking down on e factories but warn 
that production is cropping up in central Europe and Spain. For good 
reason: Americans are in love with ecstasy. "New York used to be a meat 
and-potatoes drug town - heroin, coke and pot," says John Silbering, a 
former narcotics prosecutor who works for the Tunnel, a big New York City 
nightclub. "Today we no longer find coke or heroin among the young. It's 
always ecstasy."
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake