Pubdate: Sun, 04 Mar 2001 Source: Dallas Morning News (TX) Copyright: 2001 The Dallas Morning News Contact: P.O. Box 655237, Dallas, Texas 75265 Fax: (972) 263-0456 Feedback: http://dmnweb.dallasnews.com/letters/ Website: http://www.dallasnews.com/ Forum: http://forums.dallasnews.com/cgi-bin/wwwthreads.pl Author: Phin MacDonald Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n346/a06.html?40959 DON'T EXAGGERATE DANGER Re: "Ecstasy allure grows despite health risks," Feb. 26. Dr. H. Westley Clark, director for the federal Center for Substance Abuse Treatment, says "Using ecstasy is like playing Russian roulette ... It may be that only two out of 100 people are going to die, but is ecstasy so important to you that you want to be one of those two?" But it certainly is not true that 2 out of 100 people who take ecstasy die from it. Dr. Clark himself said 27 deaths have been tied to ecstasy from 1994 through 1998. If 2 percent is the death rate, that would mean that only 1,350 people took the drug from 1994 through 1998. Obviously the number of people taking the drug during that time was far greater, meaning the 2 percent death rate mentioned by Dr. Clark is a ridiculously exaggerated figure. The article stated U.S. Customs Service alone confiscated 400,000 doses of ecstasy entering the country in fiscal 1997. Customs estimates a 10 percent rate of confiscation for illegal drugs entering the country, but even assuming they and other law enforcement got 50 percent of the drugs, at least 400,000 doses of ecstasy got through and were presumably consumed. Even if all 27 of the people who died during the '94-'98 period had died in that year, the death rate would have been less than .007 percent, not 2 percent. Any deaths due to drugs are tragic. However, it is highly counterproductive to use inflated estimates. Teenagers are likely to ignore advice from adults if they know it is not entirely accurate. Even accurate advice about the risks of drug abuse might then be viewed with suspicion. PHIN MacDonald, Medford, Mass. - --- MAP posted-by: Josh Sutcliffe