About 2,000 teenagers, most wearing nylon UFO brand parachute pants, writhe and hop on a packed dance floor. Alcohol is conspicuously absent, but the drug Ecstasy is everywhere. They say it heightens their sensitivity to the vibrating bass, tickling the skin and sending chills up the spine. N.J. She spent three weeks at a drug rehabilitation center after her mother found out about her Ecstasy habit, but she says she doesn't see the harm of a drug that produces no hangover or physical craving. Kaz and the other youths might be mistaken.
New studies show that users of Ecstasy risk the possibility of brain damage from prolonged use.
Law enforcement is intensifying its efforts to stop the growing demand for Ecstasy and to halt organized crime's penetration of the market. A hit produces a warm, fuzzy sense of well-being and the manic energy to dance until dawn. Ecstasy hurts the brain. It is no longer a hypothesis. The drug is toxic.