From the Sacramento Bee:
DEA unveils effort to break up U.S. and European Ecstasy rings
By SETH HETTENA, Associated Press Writer
Published 12:00 p.m. PDT Thursday, November 21, 2002
SAN DIEGO(AP) - Saying teenage use of Ecstasy is reaching "epidemic" levels, U.S. authorities are stepping up efforts to stamp out rings making and selling club drugs at home, in Europe and on the Internet.
The Drug Enforcement Administration plans to double the number of club-drug investigations in the United States as part of its "Operation X-Out." Currently, the DEA says about 5 percent of its major investigations involve club drugs.
The agency also intends to focus new efforts on Internet trafficking and in the Netherlands, where some 80 percent of the world's supply originates.
Drug Enforcement Administration Director Asa Hutchinson planned to detail the operation at a news conference Thursday in San Diego.
"The explosive use of Ecstasy and predatory drugs among our youth is fast reaching epidemic levels," Hutchinson said in a statement released in Washington.
The DEA reports that 8.1 million Americans 12-years-old and older tried Ecstasy in 2001, up from 6.5 million the year before.
Nationwide hospital emergency room mentions for Ecstasy rose to 5,542 last year, up from 637 in 1997, according to the Drug Abuse Warning Network.
Ecstasy, also known as MDMA, is a synthetic drug considered part hallucinogen and part amphetamine that has been linked to brain, heart and kidney damage. It became popular over the past decade at dance parties known as raves.
Earlier this month, federal authorities broke up an Ecstasy ring operating in New York City and the Netherlands, intercepting tens of thousands of pills smuggled into the United States in, among other items, the frame of a Rembrandt painting.
Hutchinson also noted a rise in the use of so-called "date-rape" drugs such as GHB, or gamma hydroxybutyrate, and Rohypnol.
In September, authorities broke up four Internet drug-trafficking rings operating in the United States and Canada, making more than 100 arrests and seizing enough chemicals for 25 million doses of GHB and similar substances.
On the Net:
www.dea.gov
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