Pubdate: Tue, 14 Mar 2006
Source: Greenwood Commonwealth (MS)
Copyright: 2006 Greenwood Commonwealth
Contact:  http://www.gwcommonwealth.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1541
Author: Bob Darden, Staff Writer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mdma.htm (Ecstasy)

ECSTASY HAS APPEARED IN GREENWOOD

Ecstasy Has Surfaced In Greenwood, Raising Concern By Authorities.

Known as MDMA or 3-4 methylenedioxymethamphetamine, Ecstasy is a 
synthetic, psychoactive drug chemically similar to the stimulant 
methamphetamine and the hallucinogen mescaline.

Sgt. Demetice Bedell of the narcotics division in the Greenwood 
Police Department warned those gathered at the monthly meeting of the 
Ward 4 Neighborhood Watch on Monday night.

Merck Company first synthesized MDMA in 1912 and patented the drug 
two years later when researchers stumbled across it while researching 
drugs to stop external bleeding.

During the 1950s, the U.S. government tested it as a truth serum as 
part of the chemical warfare efforts by the CIA and the Army.

But the first recreational use was in the 1960s. It caught on during 
the 1980s in Texas and took the name Ecstasy.

Bedell labeled Ecstasy as a relatively new drug designed "for a 
younger crowd instead of an older crowd. If we don't get a handle on 
it, certain things are going to happen. It will be devastating."

Ecstacy looks like children's aspirin tablets and can come in many 
colors. Some of the pills have a recognizable logo on them, for 
example, something akin to the Playboy bunny or Mitsubishi and Ford 
trademarks, Bedell explained.

The pills cost of between $20 and $25 each on the street, Bedell said.

Generally, the pills are swallowed or the white crystalline powder 
may be snorted, injected or smoked. The National Institute for Health 
describes the first effects of Ecstasy as "very fast, within half an 
hour of consumption."

The individual reaches a plateau after that that lasts for an hour 
and within two hours symptoms of intoxication, which result in a loss 
of inhibitions, are gone.

The physical symptoms include an increased heart rate, and hyper 
nervousness and alertness similar to an amphetamine. For men the drug 
may have the same effects as Viagra, according to recent NIH studies.

The drug is considered a party drug and is particularly fashionable 
with young men.

"One, it gives them the same feeling as Viagra. It gives them the 
same potency as that," Bedell said. "Two, it's water soluble so they 
can crunch it up and put it into a girl's drink. What does that mean? 
It means we've got a serious problem on our hands."

Within five minutes of ingesting ecstacy, a women gets the feeling 
that the man "is really turning her on, when actually it's the drug," he said.

"She seems like she's having this good time with this perfect 
stranger," and people who are attending the party don't see anything 
unusual, Bedell said.

"She's laughing out, she's giggling, she's having a good time. Later 
on, when she realizes what happened, it's too late," he said.

Once the man takes her from the party the trouble is only beginning, 
Bedell said.

"She'll wake up in the back seat of a car with no clothes on. She'll 
wake up in a hotel room with her clothes off in a corner, and she 
doesn't know how she got there," he said.

The woman, who might have been raped, cannot describe anything that 
went on because ecstacy blocks out short-term memory, Bedell said.

"She can't tell who it was. When she got there. All everybody is 
going to say, when we go back to the party for our interviews, is 
say, 'Hey, she left with the guy and was having a good time. How can 
she be raped? She left there with him,'" he said.

A case like this has already occurred in Greenwood, Bedell said.

Three hours after ingestion, Ecstacy leaves the system, so it's very 
difficult to trace - except through DNA analysis using a sample of 
the victim's hair.

More than likely, the community might say the woman is lying.

The problems with ecstacy will be covered in-depth at a Basic 
Narcotics for Parents Workshop, scheduled for noon at Turner Chapel 
African-Methodist-Episcopal Church, at 717 Walthall St. on March 25.

The workshop, which has been put together with the assistance of the 
Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics, is intended to inform adults of the 
drugs currently available on the street, Bedell said.

For more information on the narcotics workshop, call Bedell at 453-3311.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom