The drugs are smuggled into the U.S. through parcel services or on commercial airline flights.

The process of making MDMA/Ecstasy is extremely hazardous, and the chemicals used to make it are difficult to obtain.

In addition, it is easy to make errors during the process, which can cause poisoning, leaking of toxic fumes, and explosions.

At the same time, however, the process can seem simple to someone with a bit chemical training and a lot of criminal intent.

The labs used to make MDMA/Ecstasy can be rigged up from common articles and can be easily moved from place to place in a container as small as an ordinary steamer trunk.

The seeming simplicity of production has led to numerous uneducated crooks into cooking up compounds similar to MDMA/Ecstasy and selling them as the "real thing."

A police officer involved in a recent North Carolina arrest described the Ecstasy cooks as "self-taught." None of them had a chemistry degree or formal chemistry experience, "They got the directions out of books and stuff, but if they'd turned to the wrong page or something, they could have mixed the wrong things and killed people."

Drug labs have been found in barns, mobile homes, motel rooms, houseboats, mini-storage units, and basements of ordinary homes.

Unlike real pharmaceutical laboratories, these labs have no guidelines for cleanliness or scientific procedures.

Even if no adulterants are purposely added to the mix, any number of contaminants could enter the product due to the inadequate facilities and filthy conditions.

Statistics

In June 2000, the U.S. Customs Service intercepted some 9 million tablets of Ecstasy being smuggled into the United States.

In July 2000, the U.S. Customs Service at Los Angeles International Airport seized 16 packages containing 2.1 million Ecstasy tablets (1,096 pounds) with an estimated street value of at least $41 million.

Research suggests that people who used ecstasy at least 25 times had lowered serotonin levels for as long as a year after quitting.

In 2001, MDMA use among young people jumped an additional 20 percent. Since 1999, teen MDMA use increased by 71 percent.

More than 12 percent of teens report trying MDMA at least once in their lives---an increase from 10% in 2000 (a year-to-year increase of 20 percent), 7 percent in 1999 (a 71 percent increase to date) and 5 percent in 1995---an increase of 140 percent from 1995 to 2001.

Ecstasy-related emergency room incidents increased nationwide from 250 in 1994, to 637 in 1997, to 1,142 in 1998, to 2,850 in 1999.