It�s a club drug, a psychoactive party favor, and for
the past decade, it�s fueled scenes and raves across the
country. For a while it all occurred under the radar,
touted by in-crowd hipsters and decried by only the most
vigilant Drug War hawks. But in the past year, Ecstasy
has emerged at the top of the federal government�s hit
list, reaching the rarefied status of cocaine, heroin
and marijuana.
�America faces another drug threat,� Senator Charles
Grassley (R-Iowa) declared before the Senate Caucus on
International Narcotics Control in July 2000. �Each
night, somewhere in America, there is a dance party.
This is not just any dance party, but a rave . . . I
hope today�s hearing will strengthen our efforts to
fight this new and dangerous drug before it explodes any
further.�
The Ecstasy Anti-Proliferation Act of 2000 passed
quickly through Congress � debate over the new law
rivaled even the $1.3 billion Plan Colombia aid package
as Washington�s hot topic. And this spring, Judge Diana
Murphy of the U.S. Sentencing Commission said she had
set aside �other congressional directives regarding
stalking and sexual offenses against children� in order
to focus on a new schedule of jail terms for the
trafficking and use of Ecstasy.
The mass media have followed suit and begun stoking
the fires of outrage. Recent stories in The New York
Times and USA Today suggest that Ecstasy is
breeding gangland slayings and mini-riots across
America. �Violence Rises As Club Drug Spreads Out Into
the Streets,� read a front-page headline in the June 24
Times. That story readily accepted the premise of
a Drug Enforcement Agency official who stated, �Some of
the dances in the desert are no longer just dances,
they�re like violent crack houses set to music.�
In fact, of the millions of hits of Ecstasy consumed
in the U.S. over the past decade, there have been a
statistically minute number of reported incidents of
violence. Almost none are related to the use of the
drug, which induces a euphoric sense of well-being and
connection to others that has earned it the alias �the
love drug.� Rather, in each case the violence resulted
from financial disputes over the proceeds of illicit
Ecstasy sales.
�There is hysteria in Washington, D.C., as if Ecstasy
was the next crack cocaine. It�s ridiculous,� said
Ronald Richards, a criminal defense attorney who
specializes in representing Ecstasy defendants.
Certainly, the available evidence suggests, teenagers
are getting their hands on the stuff. The University of
Michigan�s �Monitoring the Future� survey found that
lifetime use among 12th-graders increased from one in 25
in 1998, to one in 15 in 1999. Last year, U.S. Customs
seized 9.3 million MDMA tablets entering the country
either by overnight mail or in the luggage of travelers.
In 1997, the same agency confiscated just 400,000
hits.
But in contradiction to Senator Grassley�s
assertions, teenagers are not regularly �dying� from
Ecstasy. According to the Drug Abuse Warning Network,
fewer than one-third of 1 percent of drug-related
emergency-room visits in 1999 resulted from use of
Ecstasy. By contrast, 19 percent of drug-related ER
visits involved alcohol in combination with another
drug, and 17 percent were due to cocaine. To use another
measure, methamphetamine was responsible for 2,600
deaths nationwide between 1994 and 1998. In 1999, there
were 4,700 deaths attributed to heroin. During that
year, when Ecstasy use was at an all-time high, the drug
was cited as a contributing factor in only nine
deaths.
Testimony in March before the U.S. Sentencing
Commission, charged by Congress with adjusting the
criminal penalties for Ecstasy, provided little evidence
of a health threat. �MDMA is less likely to cause
violence than alcohol, less addictive than cocaine or
tobacco, and less deadly than heroin,� said New York
University assistant professor of psychiatry Julie
Holland, who also works in Bellevue Hospital�s
psychiatric emergency room. �I see alcoholics and crack
addicts every time I go to work . . . I do not see
people whose lives have been ruined by MDMA.�
�There is no present evidence, even in this
population, that [Ecstasy] use has led to loss of
ordinary brain function, or has in any way compromised
the quality of [users�] lives, or that any subtle
changes are irreversible,� concluded Dr. David Nichols,
a professor of medicinal chemistry and pharmacology at
Purdue University. �None of my remarks are meant to
imply that MDMA is a safe drug . . . but MDMA is clearly
very much less dangerous.�
The Sentencing Commission was apparently unimpressed,
and quickly voted to make the federal penalties for
Ecstasy more severe than for cocaine. Possession or sale
of 800 tabs of Ecstasy now garners a five-year prison
sentence, an increase of more than 300 percent over the
old penalty. The sentence for selling 8,000 pills �
around 4 pounds of MDMA � is now 10 years. According to
Judge Murphy, the commission chairman, such stringent
measures were necessary to avoid even harsher actions in
Congress. �If we don�t follow that directive or satisfy
Congress that we�ve done it in a reasoned way,� Murphy
told the Washington Post, �their remedy is a
mandatory minimum.�
State legislatures across the country didn�t bother
to wait for Washington. More than half the states have
already raised the penalties for selling Ecstasy. In
Illinois, a bill awaiting the governor�s signature would
send those convicted of selling 15 pills or more to
state prison for between six and 30 years.
Meanwhile, the FBI, DEA, U.S. Customs and local law
enforcement have kept busy. Under the umbrella of
Operation Flashback, the DEA opened 158 Ecstasy cases
over the past three years. For the most part, rave goers
and casual users are not being targeted. Rather, it is
the smugglers, purveyors and rave promoters who are in
the cross hairs.
Most law-enforcement officials understand that
stopping the flow of Ecstasy is doomed to fail, even
with stiffer penalties in place. There�s just too much
money to be made. Ecstasy is made for around 50 cents
per dose and sold at nightclubs in the U.S. for $20 to
$30. Instead, federal and local prosecutors are waging a
culture war in places as diverse as Kansas City and
Virginia, using innovative methods to attack the Ecstasy
phenomenon at its source: rave parties.
The most publicized episode, regarded as a test case
of the federal government�s ability to go after rave
promoters, unfolded earlier this year in New Orleans. A
DEA sting at the State Palace Theater on Canal Street
resulted, in January, in a federal grand-jury indictment
of two businessmen and a rave promoter. Prosecutors
alleged, under a rarely enforced federal �crack house�
law, that managers Robert and Brian Brunet and rave
promoter Donnie �Disco� Estopinal, while not dealing
Ecstasy themselves, had facilitated the sale and use of
illegal drugs on the premises. The men faced up to 200
years in prison and $500,000 in fines.
In June, the men cut a deal. �Obviously with the
media right now, Ecstasy is the hot drug,� Estopinal
told the New Orleans Times-Picayune. �I think
that the rave scene is unfairly shouldering a lot of the
blame for what is a major problem with a lot of
different people and a lot of different scenes.�
The defendants agreed to pay a $100,000 fine and
ensure that future raves are free of Ecstasy
�paraphernalia.� That includes such seemingly harmless
items as glow sticks, mentholated inhalers and candy
pacifiers. The dreaded �chill rooms,� where ravers hang
out and relax when not dancing, are also banned.
Electronic-music scenesters and civil libertarians
rallied to the defense�s side in the case, which, they
fear, could put the big chill on raves nationwide if
similar cases are filed in other states. �The government
ought to stick to legitimate enforcement of laws and not
try to become culture cops,� said Joe Cook, executive
director of the American Civil Liberties Union.
But government officials said they were pleased with
the outcome and promised more to come. �I think this is
going to have a major effect in this area and in other
areas that have the same sorts of problems,� said
interim U.S. Attorney Jim Letten. �When gathering places
make drugs available or actively help kids get high and
sometimes overdose, we�re going to move in.�
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