Pubdate: Fri, 09 Jun 2000
Source: Austin Chronicle (TX)
Copyright: 2000 Austin Chronicle Corp.
Contact:  http://www.auschron.com/
Author: Mark Savlov
Editors Note: This is Part Three of a three part series.  It was preceded
by Parts One and Two

COUNTDOWN TO ECSTASY- PART THREE OF THREE

"What Ecstasy does to your system is very similar to speed -- it
heightens users' senses, makes them feel wide-awake, vibrant, and able
to do more and have more energy. The downside of it is that it also
raises the body's temperature. Normally, when your body gets tired,
you start to cramp or get exhausted. Under the effects of Ecstasy, you
don't notice that and you keep going and continue to elevate your
temperature.

"After about four or five hours of this, the person reaches an
overheated position, they're dehydrated, and they pass out. Their
friends think they partied too hard and just let them lay there. And
then five or six hours later they die."

The APD has long been a presence on Sixth Street, but Detective Burns
says interdiction efforts are stymied by the incestuous nature of clublife.

"It's like a news line down there," he explains. "If you're at one
club and do a deal and somebody is taken down or arrested, all the
clubs know about it within 30 minutes. So that makes it real hard to
work it logistically. Plus, if I'm not going to bust you right that
second, I have to identify you, and when you've got anywhere from
80,000-100,000 people coming and going every weekend on Sixth Street,
that's a huge task in itself."

Burns still considers crack cocaine to be Austin's No. 1 drug problem,
far outweighing the marginally lesser evil of Ecstasy. Because users
of drugs such as crack are more likely to commit violent crimes and
robberies to score the money to feed their high, the APD continues to
pour their resources into street-level interdiction and arrests.
Although the media stories that were so prevalent in the late Eighties
have more or less subsided, crack in particular remains a major
cultural and economic threat, especially in East Austin.

Since it's the new kid on the felonious pharmaceutical block,
relatively little is known about the long-term affects of Ecstasy on
human physiology.A report released in February by the National
Institute on Drug Abuse says, "MDMA harms neurons that release
serotonin, a brain chemical thought to play an important role in
regulating memory and other functions."

The NIDA/Johns Hopkins University-sponsored study utilized a technique
known as positron emission tomography to effectively map the brains of
14 MDMA users who had not used any psychoactive drug, including
Ecstasy, for at least three weeks. A similar grouping of people who
had never taken the drug at all was used as a control, and the brain
scans from the two groups were compared.

The results clearly showed depleted serotonin production in the MDMA
group, though exactly what the functional consequences of MDMA use
might be are still open to debate. The facts, or lack thereof,
indicate more research is needed before the true neurotoxicological
dangers of Ecstasy can be explored further. Of course, that doesn't
mean that today's Ecstasy users aren't dumbing themselves down for a
future as baggy halfwits. Or vice versa. Information is at a premium.

Drugs, the Brain, and Behavior

Saddled with the unwieldy title of Parke-Davis Centennial Professor of
Pharmacology and Toxicology at the University of Texas at Austin, Dr. Carl
Erickson, author of the book Drugs, the Brain, and Behavior agrees that more
research into the dangers of Ecstasy is of paramount importance.
"Part of the problem is that the kids who are using rave drugs like Ecstasy
are five years ahead of the scientists," he notes. "Scientists can't pick up
on how these drugs are working quickly -- they have to run controlled
experiments over a long period of time, and that's only after they write the
grant and get the money, which usually takes about two years.

"That's why this is so frustrating for us. We never know the
definitive answer for anybody who wants to know more detail about
these drugs. All we can do is guess."

To Erickson, Ecstasy's addictive potential is more problematic.
Because the drug is an offshoot of methamphetamine, about which much
is known, Erickson believes that although it may not cause addiction
in everyone, there is the potential "that it's capable of doing that
in individuals that are susceptible to addiction."

Though none of the users interviewed by the Chronicle expressed
concern or belief in Ecstasy's addictive properties, that doesn't
necessarily mean that they're not there. Cause for alarm?

"I think that the more kids who use the drug," says Erickson, "the
more will become dependent on it. It does affect mood, it does affect
judgment, and therefore it affects driving skills. As with any
amphetamine, or with cocaine, you have the chance of raising blood
pressure, which could result in a stroke or increase the possibility
of seizure activity in pre-epileptic individuals.

"As far as the long-term side effects, one of the things that
scientists kind of believe is that MDMA will likely destroy brain
cells with continued use. The reason I say 'likely' is because this
has been shown to be the case in animals, but it's never been shown
that this occurs in humans that I'm aware of. And I don't even know if
you can extrapolate that information to humans."

Clearly, there are legitimate concerns relating to the long-term
health issues of Ecstasy users, and more and more reports are coming
in of young people collapsing at raves and parties from dehydration
and massive overheating brought on by nonstop, Ecstasy-fueled dancing.

Some of this unwanted attention is warranted: When kids start to die,
no matter how baggy their wardrobe, people -- parents and public
officials vying for attention this election year, especially -- pay
attention. On the other hand, it should be noted that no single
instance of anyone dying from the toxicological effects of ecstacy
ingestion have been recorded.

Protection

One group working to combat the dangers of Ecstasy use is the online resource
DanceSafe (www.dancesafe.org), which was recently featured on 60 Minutes II's
Ecstasy expose and praised by several Ecstasy users mentioned in this
article.
Founded as "a national, nonprofit harm reduction organization promoting
health and safety within the rave and nightclub community," DanceSafe's
wealth of online information could conceivably be a marginally safer
jumping-off point for the millions of Ecstasy-mad kids who can't find similar
safety information elsewhere.

This sort of self-policing of the rave scene is a fairly recent
development in the U.S., but has been going on in Europe for years,
with Web sites such as the late Nicholas Saunders' groundbreaking
www.Ecstasy.org leading the way. Saunders, a middle-aged Brit who
discovered the drug in the mid-Eighties, penned the seminal E is for
Ecstasy in 1993 as a way to share his experiences with others and
offer what little scientific information he could unearth at that point.

Like Ecstasy.org, DanceSafe has rounded up as much information as it
could find and offers it to the drug's potential users free of charge.
For those interested, DanceSafe clearly and accurately refutes much of
the recent horror stories attributed to the drug, such as 60 Minutes
II's apparently unfounded (not to mention journalistically suspect)
claim that over 1,100 people have died from Ecstasy in the United
States in the past few years.

According to DanceSafe, "the figure of 1,100 emergency-room visits due
to MDMA comes from the Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) system. DAWN
compiles statistics of emergency-room visits where a particular drug
happens to be mentioned by the patient or one of their friends,
regardless of whether the drug caused the emergency. Also, blood tests
are not required, so it's impossible [to determine] if the patient
consumed real Ecstasy or DXM, a common adulterant on the Ecstasy
market that is much more likely to cause medical emergencies that real
MDMA."

DanceSafe's explanation rings true. In the course of researching this
article, the Chronicle contacted both Brackenridge and St. David's
records departments seeking any information they had regarding
Ecstasy-caused ER admissions. At both hospitals, the answer to my
question -- after a hesitant "you want admissions records for what?"
- -- was that neither facility keeps records on specific drugs.

Apparently, in a typical ER, unless the APD is officially present at
the time of the patient's admission, "drug overdose" is what goes on
his or her chart. That information, without regard to specificity, is
then passed on to the state, which in turn presents its statistical
findings in a breakdown of drug crimes by city, county, and so on.
Currently, Ecstasy has not yet been added to Texas' statistical
information, still falling under the rubric "other."

Snapshots From the Front

Boston, April 29, 2000: Federal Agents seize 172,000 Ecstasy tablets with an
estimated street value of $4.5 million, the largest seizure of the drug ever
in New England. Two men, Israeli nationals Yaniv Yona and Ereza Abutbul, both
23, are arrested by U.S. Customs agents as they attempt to receive delivery
of FedEx packages containing the drug.
Phoenix, February 24, 2000: Sammy "The Bull" Gravano -- onetime mob assassin
and the man who snitched out "Teflon Don" John Gotti -- is arrested at his
home and charged with controlling the distribution of Ecstasy in Phoenix and
surrounding areas. Gravano had dropped out of the Federal Witness Protection
Program two years earlier, saying he was sick of always looking over his
shoulder for "some kid" hoping to "make a name for himself by taking me out."

New York City, February 23, 2000: The DEA breaks up a Tel Aviv-run
Ecstasy ring in the Big Apple (novelly employing bearded orthodox Jews
as mules) after an eight-month undercover operation. More than one
million Ecstasy tablets headed for the U.S. are intercepted. According
to sources, "the pills were produced in the Netherlands at a cost of
50 cents to $1 per pill and eventually were sold in New York,
particularly at so-called rave clubs, for $25 to $50 each."

Miami. Houston. Los Angeles. There are more Ecstasy busts than ever
before, which might be seen as an indication of the drug's increasing
inroads into American popular culture. It could also be the result of
more media attention to the drug, hence more pressure on federal and
state agencies to make more arrests. It might even be seen as a result
of the fiery politics of this election year; nobody wants to appear
soft on drugs, at least not anyone hoping to win any sort of political
mandate these days.

Hollywood is even getting into the act, with a pair of Ecstasy-themed
films -- Greg Harrison's Groove and Brit Justin Harrison's Human
Traffic -- due out later this summer, a sure sign that the drug has
broadsided mainstream pop culture in heretofore unseen ways. (Doug
Liman's Go doesn't really count, since that film's Ecstasy use was
less a plot point than a Hitchcockian maguffin.) And maybe you've even
caught the recent breath-mints TV spot featuring a comely clubgoer
popping an enticing little blue pill? That ain't no Tic-Tac, baby.

The question remains: Is Ecstasy, the little pill with the smiley-face
sensuality, threatening to sour the hearts and minds of America's
youth, not to mention the casual weekend yuppie users who've taken to
it like their early-Eighties frat-boy forerunners? Or is it just
another negligible facet of Austin's intellectually hedonistic lifestyle?

"In Austin, most [people who use Ecstasy] are going to be 18-25 years
of age, college-educated kids, and they're using it as a recreational
drug," Detective Burns says. "Part of it is experimentation, rebellion
against authority, cutting loose and so on, but when you buy it at a
club, the dealer isn't going to tell you to make sure and drink plenty
of fluids and don't operate any heavy machinery, you know?"

Levon Louis agrees, at least in spirit:

"The real problem I see is that these drugs get in the hands of kids
who are not old enough to take responsibility for their actions," he
says. "They're not recognized as adults by the state and they're not
recognized as adults in my eyes, either. If you're 16 years old, then
you don't need to be doing Ecstasy, and that's the bottom line.

"If you've made it through high school and you're in college or
supporting yourself, making your own decisions in life and not living
at your mom and dad's house anymore, then you can take responsibility
for what you do to your brain and body. But until you're all grown up,
you really should be cautious and try to avoid getting yourself into a
situation where you could cause yourself trouble. There's a lot of bad
medicine out there.

"Bottom line? Be careful what you do."
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MAP posted-by: Allan Wilkinson