Pubdate: Mon, 13 Mar 2000 Source: San Diego Union Tribune (CA) Copyright: 2000 Union-Tribune Publishing Co. Contact: PO Box 120191, San Diego, CA, 92112-0191 Fax: (619) 293-1440 Website: http://www.uniontrib.com/ Forum: http://www.uniontrib.com/cgi-bin/WebX Author: Jeannine Aversa, Associated Press CUSTOMS CRACKS DOWN ON ECSTASY WASHINGTON - As the hallucinogenic drug ecstasy flows into the country in record amounts, the Customs Service is strengthening its efforts to nab traffickers. The agency has created a task force to coordinate cases dealing with the drug, which is popular among teen-agers, and is training 13 drug-detection dogs to sniff out the substance, Customs Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Monday. Kelly also posted a message on the Customs Service's World Wide Web site, www.customs.gov, seeking to educate parents and young people about the drug and its dangers. "The new measures we're taking are designed to keep the ecstasy problem from becoming a full-fledged epidemic," Kelly said in a statement. Since Oct. 1, customs officials have seized almost 4 million doses of the drug, an all-time high, the service said. For fiscal year 1999, which ended Sept. 30, inspectors confiscated 3 million doses and in the 1998 fiscal year, 750,000 doses. In December, customs officials in California confiscated 700 pounds of the drug, the single largest seizure of its kind in the agency's history. "Ecstasy has rapidly become a major concern for Customs," Kelly said. In Europe, from where many of the tablets are imported, the doses cost just a few pennies apiece to make, Kelly said. But once the tablets are sold in the United States, they can fetch $20 to $40 each, he said. "Because of this profit margin, international crime groups have become heavily involved in the ecstasy trade," Kelly said. "These syndicates are capable of smuggling huge quantities of ecstasy." Former Mafia hit man Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano was arrested in February for alleged participation in an ecstasy-peddling ring. Customs said the drug is popular among teen-agers, especially those who frequent nightclubs and all-night technodance parties known as "raves." Urban areas remain the primary venues for raves, but they also are creeping into suburban and rural communities. With those parties comes the illegal use of ecstasy, the Customs Service says. The drug is chemically known as MDMA for Methylenedioxymethylamphetamine. Ecstasy's users normally experience feelings of euphoria and an increased desire to interact socially, the service said. Blood pressure, heart rate and body temperature increase dramatically. Other physical symptoms include involuntary teeth-grinding. To counter this, some users suck on pacifiers. - --- MAP posted-by: Don Beck