Pubdate: Wed, 02 Aug 2000
Source: International Herald-Tribune (France)
Copyright: International Herald Tribune 2000
Contact:  181, Avenue Charles de Gaulle, 92521 Neuilly Cedex, France
Fax: (33) 1 41 43 93 38
Website: http://www.iht.com/
Page: 2
Author: Karen DeYoung, Washington Post Service

ECSTASY'S POPULARITY BRINGS NEW ATTENTION

The 'Hug Drug' / Use Rises In The U.S.

WASHINGTON - Two years ago, the amount of the illegal drug ecstasy entering 
the United States was worrisome, but not a major concern for federal law 
enforcement. With most attention focused on cocaine and heroin coming in 
from South America, searching well-dressed travelers on flights from Paris 
and Am-sterdam for aspirin-sized ecstasy tablets was not a high priority.

Although only about 8 percent of high school seniors reported having tried 
it in 1999, ecstasy is the only illegal drug for which a significant usage 
increase was detected last year.

In the past seven months, nearly 8 million pills have been seized by the 
U.S. Customs Service and the Drug Enforcement Administration, 20 times the 
number seized in all of 1998.

Amid nationwide alarm, two congressional hearings have been held this 
summer on ecstasy, and bills have been introduced in both houses to 
increase penalties for trafficking and possession. On Monday, the Drug 
Enforcement Administration began a three-day conference on ecstasy attended 
by more than 300 U.S. and international law enforcement officials and drug 
abuse prevention experts.

First developed in Germany in 1912, ecstasy is different from other drugs 
in the ways it is produced, trafficked and used, challenging traditional 
notions of how to deal with the smuggling and use of it. It has pushed law 
enforcement into new and unfamiliar areas.

"It's changed our institutional mindset," said Commissioner Raymond Kelly 
of the Customs Service. "We were kind of southern-focused, and now we've 
had to extend that focus to Europe. " In addition to moving personnel and 
changing techniques - including new scrutiny of passengers on major 
European airlines - the Customs Service has been forced to put its sniffer 
dogs on an ecstasy crash course.

Unlike cocaine and heroin, the moodenhancing ecstasy doesn't originate in 
remote jungles or highlands. Its components can't be grown in back yards or 
easily manufactured in basements. At least 80 percent of all the ecstasy in 
the world comes from clandestine urban laboratories in just one country, 
the Netherlands. Most of the chemicals used to make it are controlled under 
international law, but travel easily to Amsterdam and The Hague from 
eastern Europe across the newly borderless European Union.

Most of the ecstasy entering the United States is trafficked by what drug 
enforcement officials call "Israeli organized crime," a nationality not 
previously associated with the drug underworld. Its chieftains are 
well-traveled, in their twenties, speak multiple languages and carry more 
than one passport. Much of their business is conducted via cell phones and 
computers that allow them to track shipments and distribution on a 
minute-by-minute basis.

Those caught bringing ecstasy into the United States from Europe are an 
unlikely array of couriers who range from New York Hasidic Jew% to Los 
Angeles strippers to middle-class Texas families.

For smuggling purposes, ecstasy is easy to hide and has an astronomical 
profit margin. A single pill purchased for 50 cents in Amsterdam can sell 
for as much as $50 at 11 rave" dance parties throughout the United States.

Still rarely sold on the street, ecstasy is most freely available in the 
cavernous warehouses and clubs where thousands of young people gather for 
all-night dancing to electronically produced "techno" music.

"It's not a very visible drug," said Inspector Cathy Lanier, who heads the 
Metropolitan Police's major narcotics branch in Washington. "It's 
concentrated down in the nightclubs, behind closed doors."

The police in Washington are concentrating their efforts on interdicting 
large quantities of ecstasy reaching the area. Tens of thousands of pills 
have been seized at Dulles International Airport this year on flights from 
Europe; a bust on a train from New York last year netted 10,000 tablets.

Known scientifically as 3-4 methylenedioxymethamphetamine, or MDMA, ecstasy 
is a ubiquitous subject on the Internet. On sites where erratically 
scheduled raves are advertised, visitors chat ceaselessly about its 
availability and purity, and frequently bemoan the fact that ever-younger 
"kids" are using it.

Scientific articles are posted warning of its dangers or attempting to 
disprove them. The White House Drug Control Policy Office, producer of 
slick television and billboard campaigns to warn youths and their parents 
about drug use, does almost all its anti-ecstasy proselytizing on its 
www.freevibe.com Web site and a site devoted to parent education.

Called the "hug drug, " ecstasy triggers a chemical reaction in the brain 
that lowers inhibitions and engenders feelings of wellbeing and closeness 
to others. There are few reports of LSD-like bad trips, and virtually no 
violence associated with its use.

Ecstasy wasn't even illegal in the United States until 1985.

The drug's immediate side effects include increased heart rate and blood 
pressure, dehydration, overheating, teeth-grinding and jaw-clenching. 
Emergency room admissions associated with its use have more than doubled in 
the past two years, but only a relative handful of deaths have been 
attributed to ecstasy.

But with major new funding for government and private research into its 
effects, there is now "pretty good evidence that it probably causes 
permanent damage to a portion" of the brain, said David McDowell, assistant 
professor of clinical psychiatry and head of the Substance Treatment and 
Research Service at Columbia University.

The chemicals in ecstasy impair the function and long-term production of 
serotonin, a brain chemical that keeps people on an even emotional and 
cognitive keel and whose absence can lead to major psychological problems, 
Mr. McDowell said. Other recent studies have indicated possible long-term 
memory loss and cognitive impairment.

There have been signs recently that more traditional smuggling networks and 
routes are moving into the lucrative ecstasy trade. In February, police in 
Arizona arrested Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano, a former New York 
organized crime hit man turned federally protected witness, and charged him 
with involvement in an ecstasy smuggling ring.

But Israelis have been involved in nearly all major busts so far, according 
to Customs Service and drug enforcement officials.

Among recent arrests:

* Last Wednesday, federal authorities announced their largest-ever seizure 
of ecstasy, approximately 2.1 million tablets produced in the Netherlands, 
on a flight from Paris at Los Angeles International Airport. Although 
several arrests were made, the man identified by the Customs Service as the 
head of the "drug importation ring," Tamer Adel Ibrahim, an Israeli, 
remained at large.

* Also on Wednesday, two Israeli nationals, a Canadian and an American were 
arrested and charged with bringing 100,000 pills into New York state from 
Canada, traveling across the St. Lawrence River.
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MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart