Pubdate: Tue, 01 Aug 2000
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2000 The Washington Post Company
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Page: A03
Author: Karen DeYoung

ALARM ON SPREADING ECSTASY

Two years ago, the amount of the illegal drug Ecstasy entering the United
States was worrisome, but not a major concern for federal law enforcement.
With most attention focused on cocaine and heroin coming in from South
America, searching well-dressed travelers on flights from Paris and
Amsterdam for aspirin-sized Ecstasy tablets was not a high priority.

Today, Ecstasy is the fastest-growing abused drug in the United States.
Although only about 8 percent of high school seniors reported having tried
it in 1999, it is the only illegal drug for which significant usage
increases were detected last year.

In the past seven months, nearly 8 million pills have been seized by the
U.S. Customs Service and the Drug Enforcement Administration, 20 times the
number seized in all of 1998.

Amid nationwide alarm, two congressional hearings have been held this
summer on Ecstasy, and bills have been introduced in both houses to
increase penalties for trafficking and possession. Yesterday, the DEA began
a 3-day conference on Ecstasy in Crystal City attended by more than 300
U.S. and international law enforcement officials and drug abuse prevention
experts.

First developed in Germany in 1912, Ecstasy is different from other drugs
in the ways it is produced, trafficked and used, challenging traditional
notions of how to deal with smuggling and abuse. It has pushed law
enforcement into new and unfamiliar areas.

"It's changed our institutional mind-set," said Customs Commissioner
Raymond Kelly. "We were kind of southern-focused, and now we've had to
extend that focus to Europe." In addition to moving personnel and changing
techniques--including new scrutiny of passengers on major European
airlines--Customs has been forced to put its sniffer dogs on an Ecstasy
crash course.

Unlike cocaine and heroin, the mood-enhancing Ecstasy doesn't originate in
remote jungles or highlands. Its components can't be grown in back yards or
easily manufactured in basements. At least 8 percent of all the Ecstasy in
the world comes from clandestine urban laboratories in just one country,
the Netherlands.

Most of the chemicals used to make it are controlled under international
law, but travel easily to Amsterdam and The Hague from eastern Europe
across the newly borderless European Union.Most of the Ecstasy entering the
United States is trafficked by what DEA calls "Israeli Organized Crime," a
nationality not previously associated with the drug underworld. Its
chieftains are well-traveled, in their twenties, speak multiple languages
and carry more than one passport. Much of their business is conducted via
cell phones and computers that allow them to track shipments and
distribution on a minute-by-minute basis.

Those who have been caught bringing Ecstasy into this country from Europe
are an unlikely array of couriers who range from New York Hasidic Jews to
Los Angeles strippers to middle-class Texas families.

For smuggling purposes, Ecstasy is easy to hide and has an astronomical
profit margin. A single pill purchased for 50 cents in Amsterdam can sell
for as much as $50 at "rave" dance parties throughout the country.

Still rarely sold on the street, Ecstasy is most freely available in the
cavernous warehouses and clubs where thousands of young people gather for
all-night dancing to electronically produced "techno" music.

"It's not a very visible drug," said Inspector Cathy Lanier, who heads the
Metropolitan Police's major narcotics branch in Washington. "It's
concentrated down in the nightclubs, behind closed doors.

"While they insist they will arrest the possessor of just one pill, local
police concentrate their efforts on interdicting large quantities of
Ecstasy reaching the area. Tens of thousands of pills have been seized at
Dulles International Airport this year on flights from Europe; a bust on a
train from New York at Union Station last summer netted 10,000 tablets.

Known scientifically as 3-4 methylenedioxymethamphetamine, or MDMA, Ecstasy
is a ubiquitous subject on the Internet. On sites where erratically
scheduled raves are advertised, visitors chat ceaselessly about its
availability and purity, and frequently bemoan the fact that ever-younger
"kids" are using it.

Scientific articles are posted warning of its dangers or attempting to
disprove them. The White House Drug Control Policy Office, producer of
slick television and billboard campaigns to warn youths and their parents
about drug use, does almost all its anti-Ecstasy proselytizing on its
www.freevibe.com site and a site devoted to parent education.

Called the "hug drug," Ecstasy triggers a chemical reaction in the brain
that lowers inhibitions and engenders feelings of well-being and closeness
to others. There are few reports of LSD-like bad trips, and virtually no
violence associated with its use. So far, it is not considered addictive.

Ecstasy wasn't even illegal until 1985, and one of the biggest continuing
problems for law enforcement is that many of those who use it believe it is
harmless. Until recently, there was little scientific evidence to prove the
doubters wrong.

Immediate side effects include increased heart rate and blood pressure,
dehydration, overheating, teeth-grinding and jaw-clenching. Emergency room
admissions associated with its use have more than doubled in the past two
years, but only a relative handful of deaths have been attributed to
Ecstasy.

But with major new funding for government and private research into its
effects, there is now "pretty good evidence that it probably causes
permanent damage to a portion" of the brain, said David M. McDowell, an
assistant professor of clinical psychiatry and head of the Substance
Treatment and Research Service at Columbia University.

The chemicals in Ecstasy impair the function and long-term production of
serotonin, a brain chemical that keeps people on an even emotional and
cognitive keel and whose absence can lead to major psychological problems,
McDowell said. Other recent studies have indicated possible long-term
memory loss and cognitive impairment.

In recent months, there have been signs that more traditional smuggling
networks and routes are moving into the lucrative Ecstasy trade. Last
February, police in Arizona arrested "Sammy the Bull" Gravano, a former New
York organized crime hit man turned federally protected witness, and
charged him with involvement in an Ecstasy smuggling ring.

But Israelis have been involved in virtually all the major busts so far,
according to Customs and DEA. Among recent arrests:

* Last Wednesday, federal authorities announced their largest-ever seizure
of Ecstasy, approximately 2.1 million tablets produced in the Netherlands,
on a flight from Paris at Los Angeles International Airport. Although
several arrests were made, the man identified by Customs as the head of the
"drug importation ring," Israeli Tamer Adel Ibrahim, remained at large.

* Also on Wednesday, two Israeli nationals, a French-Canadian and a Native
American were arrested and charged with bringing 100,000 pills into New
York state from Canada, traveling across the St. Lawrence River.

* Last spring, New York yeshiva student Shimon Levita was sentenced to 30
months in a federal boot camp for participating in an Ecstasy-smuggling
ring allegedly run by Israeli Sean Erez, now awaiting extradition from the
Netherlands.

According to court testimony, Erez paid Levita $2,000 for each new courier
he signed up. Prosecutors said the smugglers believed the Hasidic
youths--each given $1,500 for carrying 30,000 to 45,000 pills into the
United States--would be considered less suspicious by airport Customs
inspectors.

* Last month, a year-long Customs investigation code-named "Operation Paris
Express" resulted in the arrest of 25 people in connection with a Los
Angeles-based smuggling operation. Authorities seized 650,000 Ecstasy
tablets with a retail value of $19.5 million.

Among those arrested was alleged ringleader Jacob Orgad, identified by
federal officials as an Israeli national with smuggling cells in Texas, New
York, Florida, California and Paris. Some of Orgad's alleged couriers were
strippers, as well as couples who were instructed to bring children with
them on the trips.

Customs has traced some of the Ecstasy in that case to Washington, where it
was allegedly sold to attendees at raves here who were then robbed of both
their money and their newly purchased drugs.

Clinton administration and law enforcement officials have praised the
efforts of Dutch authorities who have attempted to shut down Ecstasy labs
there. But Kelly said the Netherlands has become "overwhelmed" by the
extent of the problem.

At the same time, the administration has made "several senior level
interventions" to Israel on the matter, Assistant Secretary of State Rand
Beers told Congress last week. "Senior-level Israeli officials have told us
they are prepared to move forward," Beers said. "But this is a difficult
issue within Israel.

"Israel's laws do not permit extradition of its citizens, and last month
the Money-Laundering Task Force of the world's leading industrial nations
designated Israel one of 15 "non-cooperating nations" for its lax banking
laws.
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MAP posted-by: Eric Ernst