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Popular 'club drugs' move into
mainstream scene
By Donna Leinwand, USA TODAY
Club drugs, popular for years at
all-night rave parties, are moving steadily mainstream,
and kids say the drugs, particularly Ecstasy, are easy to
get in schools and neighborhoods.
Experts cite the emerging club-drug
scene as one of the two key changes — the other being an
increasing supply of exceptionally pure heroin — in the
"otherwise stable" illicit drug landscape since
1999.
"Availability of club drugs
has increased dramatically across the nation, especially
for Ecstasy, which has increased in nearly every
city," according to Pulse Check, the twice-yearly
drug abuse trend report from the White House Office on
National Drug Control Policy.
Pulse Check reports that the use of
club drugs, which include Ecstasy, ketamine and GHB, has
emerged or intensified over the past year in 17 cities:
Boston; Chicago; Columbia, S.C.; Denver; Detroit; El Paso;
Honolulu; Los Angeles; Memphis; Miami; New Orleans; New
York; Philadelphia; Portland, Maine; Seattle; Sioux Falls,
S.D.; and Washington, D.C.
"The data are clear that it's
moved out of the club scene," says Alan Leshner,
executive director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse
in Bethesda, Md. "We are now seeing the drugs used by
everybody. Parents can't just say, 'My kid doesn't go to
clubs, so I don't need to worry about it.' "
Law enforcement authorities in
Miami say that club drugs are "everywhere, even at
ice skating rinks," Pulse Check reports. In New York,
Long Island youths are buying the drugs from the Internet
and from dealers at local malls. In Seattle and Billings,
Mont., the drugs are sold on high school and college
campuses, police say.
Last year, more than 1.4 million
people ages 18 to 25 reported taking Ecstasy at least
once, the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse found.
Among students surveyed in 2000, 8.2% of 12th-graders,
5.4% of 10th-graders and 3.1% of eighth-graders say they
used Ecstasy in the past year.
"That means 165,000
eighth-graders, kids who are 13 and 14 years old, are
experimenting with their own brains," Leshner says.
Ecstasy, by far the most popular of
the club drugs, produces both stimulant and psychedelic
effects, and users often dance all night. Ketamine, an
anesthetic used mostly on animals, is a disassociative
drug that produces hallucinations. GHB is a tasteless,
odorless depressant that sedates and intoxicates users and
may be used to come down from Ecstasy.
GHB also has been used by rapists
to subdue their victims.
Club-drug users and sellers, Pulse
Check says, tend to be "young, white, middle-class
males and females" who use the drugs in combination
with other drugs, such as hallucinogens, cocaine, heroin,
marijuana, methamphetamine and prescription drugs. Teens
or college-age students may gather to "trail
mix" at a potluck drug party where various drugs are
pooled and shared.
Most club-drug activity occurs in
the suburbs, the report says.
"Ecstasy user and seller
groups are also expanding to include more blacks and
Hispanics, and use and sales settings continue to expand
from exclusively nightclubs and raves to high schools,
streets and open venues," the report says.
The use of Ecstasy and other club
drugs has spawned an entire culture and lingo. An Ecstasy
high is called "rolling." Ecstasy users become
bewitched by flashing lights and music with a steady bass
beat. Teens may attend all-night rave parties featuring
techno music and light shows that cater to an Ecstasy
user's heightened sensitivities to light, sound and touch.
To capitalize on their heightened
senses, partiers wave light sticks, tape flashing
"belly lights" to their navels or wear
luminescent, flickering bracelets called Toobies. Users
may wear fuzzy sweaters or other soft fabrics. Some
Ecstasy users coat surgical masks with vapor rubs for the
cooling rush sensation.
Ecstasy also causes involuntary jaw
clenching, so users suck on pacifiers and candy necklaces
to alleviate the effects.
Abuse experts and law enforcement
authorities say that as users get bored with Ecstasy
alone, they are experimenting with dangerous drug
combinations. Ecstasy users may snort a "bump"
of ketamine to intensify the hallucinatory aspects of
Ecstasy at the peak of a "roll." As the Ecstasy
wears off, users may drink a shot glass or capful of GHB
to ease off Ecstasy's speed effects.
The Drug Abuse Warning Network,
which tracks emergency-room visits in 21 metropolitan
areas, reported 4,969 emergency-room visits for GHB
overdoses, 4,511 visits for Ecstasy and 263 visits for
ketamine in 2000.
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