Ecstasy deaths trigger worry

Keith Paul

Friday, Sept. 8, 2000 | 11:26 a.m.

The increasingly popular drug Ecstasy has been blamed in the deaths of five people in the Las Vegas Valley since 1999 -- a figure that some health officials predict could escalate as use of the drug becomes more widespread.

The first known fatality solely attributed to Ecstasy intoxication in the Las Vegas Valley was the December 1999 death of 26-year-old Jennifer Brown, said Ron Flud, Clark County coroner.

This year there have been two deaths of valley residents attributed to Ecstasy -- also known as MDMA, methylenedioxymethamphetamine. The April death of 40-year-old Randall Anderson of Las Vegas and the July death of Danielle Heird, 21, of Henderson were caused by accidental overdoses of the drug, Flud said.

In March 1999, 29-year-old David Allen Kemple's death was attributed to Ecstasy and GHB (gamma hydroxybutyrate), also known as "the date rape drug." Ecstasy was also listed as a contributing factor in the July 1999 suicide of a 33-year-old Las Vegas man, Flud said.

"If the usage continues to increase, we are going to have more people coming into the emergency room from the effects," said Dr. Dale Carrison, director of University Medical Center's emergency room. "With more access to the drug and with more people who take it, there will be more chances someone will die."

The number of people experiencing adverse symptoms after using Ecstasy has been growing nationwide in recent years. In 1994 the Drug Abuse Warning Network received 253 reports of emergency room visits due to Ecstasy use.

In 1997 the number had increased to 637 and jumped to 1,143 in 1998. Last year there were 2,850 reported emergency room visits nationwide due to the drug's use, according to the survey.

Ecstasy can cause increased heart rate, a rise in body temperature, increased blood pressure, seizures, loss of consciousness and even death, said Dr. H. Westley Clark, director of the Center of Substance Abuse Treatment in Rockville, Md., part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

"Since it raises the body temperature, it's not a drug you want to use especially in an extremely hot climate like Las Vegas," Clark said.

Ecstasy, originally developed for psychiatric therapy, has the reputation among users that it's a safe drug with no side effects. The drug, a synthetic methamphetamine derivative, causes a mind-altering euphoria. The drug has been linked to raves and the club culture.

"If it was safe, why are people dying from the effects of it?" Carrison said.

The drug isn't regulated by the government or manufactured by drug companies, which means whoever is cooking up the pills is determining what is mixed in.

"There is no quality control. You have no idea what besides (Ecstasy) is in the pill," said Detective Todd Raybuck of Metro Police's narcotics unit.

In years past Metro detectives have seized small amounts of Ecstasy tablets during drug busts, but in the past year increasingly large amounts of the drug have been seized. On one drug bust this year, 10,000 tabs of Ecstasy worth a reported $250,000 on the street were confiscated, Raybuck said.

"Before we were getting small amounts, now we've had cases where we've gotten pounds," he said.

U.S. Customs agents have confiscated 5.4 million Ecstasy pills nationwide in the first six months of the 2000 fiscal year, compared with 3.5 million pills confiscated in all of fiscal year 1999, officials say.

In a 1999 survey by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, 4.4 percent of 10th graders and 5.6 percent of 12th graders polled said they had used Ecstasy in the previous 12 months.

The long-term effect of the drug is not yet known, said Don Frisch, a clinical pharmacist at University Medical Center.

"They don't feel any bad effect and then come back for more," Frisch said. "They continue to get good trips until they get a bad trip, and the one bad trip can be deadly."