Drugs/ecstacy

Ecstasy affects your brain. Ecstasy is often used at all-night dance parties ("raves"), nightclubs, and concerts. Ecstasy can damage the neurons in your brain, impairing your senses, memory, judgment, and coordination.

Ecstasy affects your body. Ecstasy is a stimulant that increases your heart rate and blood pressure and can lead to heart or kidney failure.

Ecstasy is not always what it seems. Because ecstasy is illegal and often produced in makeshift laboratories, it is impossible to know exactly what chemicals were used to produce it and where it came from. How strong or dangerous any illegal drug is varies each time.

Ecstasy can kill you. Higher doses of ecstasy can cause severe breathing problems, coma, or even death.

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Before You Risk It

Know the law. It is illegal to buy or sell ecstasy. It is also a federal crime to use any controlled substance to aid in a sexual assault.

Get the facts. Despite what you may have heard, ecstasy can be addictive.

Know the risks. Mixing ecstasy with other drugs or with alcohol is extremely dangerous. The effects of one drug can magnify the effects and risks of another. In fact, mixing substances can be lethal.

Look around you. The vast majority of teens are not using drugs, including ecstasy. While ecstasy is considered to be the most frequently used club drug, less than 2 percent of 8th - 12th graders use it on a regular basis. In fact, 94 percent of teens have never even tried ecstasy.(1)

Know the Signs

How can you tell if a friend is using club drugs? Sometimes it's tough to tell. But there are signs you can look for. If your friend has one or more of the following warning signs, he or she may be using Ecstasy:

Problems remembering things they recently said or did

Loss of coordination, dizziness, fainting

Depression

Confusion

Sleep problems