Pubdate: Thu, 09 Nov 2000
Source: Boston Globe (MA)
Copyright: 2000 Globe Newspaper Company.
Contact:  P.O. Box 2378, Boston, MA 02107-2378
Feedback: http://extranet.globe.com/LettersEditor/default.asp
Website: http://www.boston.com/globe/
Aurhor: Amber Bollman, Globe Correspondent

ECSTASY ADDITIVES TROUBLE ACTIVISTS,  PILLS LACED TO MEET DEMAND FOR CLUB DRUG

Law enforcement authorities and antidrug activists are warning that new and 
dangerous additives are being mixed into one of the most popular drugs sold 
and used in the city's nightclubs.

Law enforcement officials say many makers of ecstasy, eager to cut costs 
and meet the demand for the euphoria-inducing drug among high school and 
college students, are lacing the pills with cheaper and more dangerous 
substances.

''You are becoming less and less likely to get what you think you're 
getting,'' said Mariellen Burns, a Boston Police Department spokeswoman. 
Boston police are combat ing the popularity of the illegal drug by sending 
undercover officers into nightclubs to nab dealers. ''This drug is often 
marketed specifically to people of that age'' range, Burns said. Of 
particular concern, authorities said, is the use of PMA, a chemical 
recently blamed for the death of an 18-year-old woman in Illinois. When 
ingested, PMA causes sharp increases in body temperature. It also prevents 
blood from clotting and causes internal bleeding. ''You essentially bleed 
to death from the inside,'' said Emily Romano of the New England chapter of 
DanceSafe, a national group that promotes health and safety in nightclubs.

While no hard data are available, anecdotal evidence from police and 
antidrug groups suggests that ecstasy pills laced with a variety of 
additives are infiltrating dance clubs in Boston in growing numbers. 
Besides PMA, other common additives include amphetamines, Valium, and even 
caffeine. According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, ecstasy use 
increased 500 percent in the United States from 1993 to 1998. During that 
period, emergency room visits nationwide resulting from the use of ecstasy 
skyrocketed, from 68 to 1,100. Massachusetts officials said the number of 
samples of ecstasy pills that arrived at the state's drug analysis lab rose 
from 20 in 1997 to 342 last year.

In recent weeks, Romano said she has spoken to several young people who 
have taken what they believed to be pure ecstasy and experienced symptoms 
of much more harmful substitutes.

''I hear these kids talking about really terrible hallucinations and 
convulsions, which are not things you experience with ecstasy,'' Romano 
said. ''There has been a definite scare, especially because of deaths and 
injuries that have happened in other parts of country.'' Chris, a 
20-year-old college student living in Boston, says he used to use ecstasy 
every weekend, but a bad experience scared him off the drug permanently. 
Last November at a party, he took a pill that turned out to be mostly 
ketamine, an anesthetic used in animal tranquilizers. Although Chris 
swallowed only one pill, his friends crushed and snorted several. Like most 
varieties of ecstasy, the pills Chris and his friends took were stamped 
with a logo, in this case a green triangle. ''I just felt really bad, but 
they started seeing all kinds of crazy things and seriously thought they 
were dying,'' Chris said. ''They were messed up for a long time, and they 
couldn't really sleep for like three days. That pretty much ended it for 
me.'' Danny, a 19-year-old who lives in Miami, said, ''With ecstasy, you 
never know what's in it, but it seems now like more and more people are 
ending up with bad pills.'' Like others interviewed for this report who 
said they used ecstasy, Danny spoke only on the condition that his last 
name not be used. Ecstasy pills typically cost less than $1 to make but 
sell for between $20 and $40. According to DanceSafe, which encourages 
ecstasy users to have their pills tested and posts the lab results on its 
Web site, green-triangle stamped pills from New York, Seattle, 
Philadelphia, and Los Angeles have been found to contain DXM, another 
common additive that is found in many over-the-counter cough suppressants.

Aja, a 20-year-old from St. Louis studying at a Boston college who has been 
using ecstasy for almost three years, has experienced vomiting, 
convulsions, and uncontrollable jaw clenching after unknowingly taking 
ecstasy pills that contained DXM and methamphetamines. DanceSafe, which 
operates testing tables inside some West Coast nightclubs, has launched a 
local campaign urging clubgoers to purchase kits to test ecstasy pills.

While the pills can often be bought inside clubs, users often take them at 
home before heading out for the night.

The kits cost about $25 and are available online.

Ecstasy users build a tolerance for the drug very quickly, and must often 
take several pills over the course of the night to maintain their high. 
Romano is encouraging users to take only one pill, to minimize the effects 
of potentially contaminated drugs.

Burns, however, said there is no such thing as responsible ecstasy use. The 
drug, she said, is easy to conceal, and in the darkness of a nightclub or 
party, anything could be passed off as ecstasy.

''These people have no idea what they are doing,'' Burns said. ''Anyone who 
thinks they are safe is incredibly naive, because there are no safe ways to 
do these drugs.'' Though ecstasy has not been proven to be physically 
addictive, Burns said many users become addicted to ''the state of mind and 
the escapism.'' Aja, who says she has cut back her use to every other 
weekend, went through a period in which she used the drug three times each 
week, sometimes taking as many as 15 pills a night.

''It's definitely a waste of brain cells and money, too, to be taking so 
many,'' she said. Aja has since purchased a testing kit, but admits that 
she doesn't always use it. Danny also tries to test most of his pills and 
buys them from dealers he trusts.

Chris said he generally only took pills that he had seen other friends try 
without suffering severe side effects. ''Someone always has to be the 
guinea pig, but it usually wasn't me,'' he said. But, he added, most 
ecstasy users don't worry enough about contamination.

He is particularly concerned about students arriving in Boston to start 
college. ''I really worry about these freshmen because you know there are 
going to be a ton of them rolling, and they don't know anything about the 
drug at all,'' Chris said. ''People really need to smarten up.''
- ---
MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens