| Part Two: A National Epidemic Ecstasy is bombarding the United States in record amounts. Customs Officials have apprehended almost 4 million doses of the drug since Oct. 1 of last year. Similarly, officials seized 3 million doses for the 1999 fiscal year, and 750,000 doses in the fiscal year of 1998. And just last December, California customs officials confiscated 700 pounds of the drug, the agency's largest single bust of its kind. If that many doses have been seized, it leaves customs officials wondering how many more are making it past them. This concern has prompted the Customs Service to form a special task force whose only concern is cases of this nature. Even dogs are being trained to learn how to sniff out MDMA. Most of the pills are being exported from Europe to the United States, where it costs almost nothing for them to be made. Since dealers sell these tablets of bliss anywhere from $20-$40, big profits can be generated for ecstasy dealers and handlers.  Locally, in the past month, two Illinois suburban teens have died from an overdose of what they thought was ecstasy. Both 18-year-old Sara Aeschlimann of Naperville and 17-year-old Steve Lorenz of McHenry died in the past two weeks after taking identical pills. But now police officials are saying that Aeschlimann is the first U.S. victim of a similar, more potent and dangerous drug called PMA. Deaths from PMA have been recorded in both Australia and Canada, but before last week, significant amounts of PMA have not been seen in the United States. Officials are still waiting for results to know whether Lorenz's pill was MDMA or PMA, otherwise known as paramethoxyamphetamine.
At the same time, on May 10, the Chicago City Council committee passed legislation to crackdown on rave parties in the Chicago and surrounding areas. The ordinance requires these parties to obtain a license or everyone, from the owner to the Disc Jockey, would face fines that reach up to $10,000. This ordinance is an attempt to crackdown on these all night parties, which are usually one step ahead of the police, where the consumption of ecstasy and other illicit drugs by attending teens is high. next: What's all the fuss about? back: Introduction [ or, go back to the top ] | 
