Mon, Mar 24, 2008 (2:07 a.m.)

A 2006 federal law requires stores selling over-the-counter drugs to secure products containing ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, and to document and limit the sales of those products.

The law, an amendment to the USA Patriot Act, was passed because ephedrine-containing products — developed to relieve minor ailments — are prized ingredients of methamphetamine.

That illegal and destructively addictive drug is now harder to get and more expensive. But the law has had an unintended consequence.

As Las Vegas Sun reporter Abigail Goldman wrote recently, the decreasing availability of meth has created more demand for Ecstasy.

Southern Nevadans became acutely aware of Ecstasy in 2000, when a 21-year-old Henderson woman died after a night of partying at a Strip nightclub. She had taken at least one Ecstasy pill, according to a Clark County coroner’s report.

Ecstasy stimulates its users for short periods and can also cause mild hallucinations. The worst-case scenario is a user’s experiencing heat stroke or organ failure leading to death. Side effects can include anxiety, paranoia, depression, sleeplessness, restlessness, nausea, skin damage and addiction.

Metro Police told Goldman that in 2006 they’d seized about 24,000 Ecstasy pills. In 2007 they seized about 225,000 pills — an indication of the drug’s growing popularity.

Goldman reported that Web sites have sprung up, with Ecstasy users describing their experiences with different “brands” of Ecstasy pills.

Ecstasy is most popular among teens and young adults seeking enough stamina and desire to party all night long. They’re old enough to educate themselves about drugs, and we wish they would, as police and nightspot owners can do only so much.

They could start by remembering these words: “A parent’s not supposed to survive their children. It’s not the scheme of things.”

They were spoken in a national drug-awareness ad — by the grief-stricken dad of the Henderson woman who died eight years ago.