Tripping on the wild side

Over the past three years, the drug ecstasy -- also known simply as "E" -- has infiltrated Taiwan with surprising speed.

Pharmacologically known as methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), ecstasy combines properties of both stimulants and hallucinogens and is said to produce a sensual euphoria. It also comes in rainbow colors and neat logos. For many people in Taiwan it has become the ultimate recreational drug.

Taiwan's first reported case of ecstasy use was in 1996, and 1997 saw law enforcement's first MDMA seizures, which totaled just 73.5 grams for the entire year. This year, more than 60 times that amount (4.8kg through October) has already been confiscated.

A new fad is clearly in the making.

While the police's MDMA hauls are still small in comparison with those of other drugs like heroin (116 kg) and amphetamines (789 kg), Li Jih-heng (李志恆), Director-General of the National Bureau of Controlled Drugs, says that ecstasy's low statistical presence may result in some confusion between MDMA and amphetamines, which are chemically similar. But Taipei clubbers and partygoers argue that the narcotic is in widespread use.

"Everyone's just doing it for fashion," said Alan, a 20-year-old makeup artist and occasional club patron. For him, the ecstasy wave is in the same league with aluminum alloy sun glasses, synthetic fabrics, the pounding of trance beats and all the other reprocessed psychedelia consumed in rave and dance culture.

Like legitimate products, MDMA makers use brand names and logos to market their pills. Many are appropriated from the slick designs of corporate pop-culture, taking names like Motorola, Mitsubishi and Ferrari. Other ecstasy brands are derived from cartoons, like Pokeman, Snoopy and Pink Panther. For the digital flower children types, still more lines play up a natural product image, like the currently popular Tai Chi series, white tiger and several different colors of butterfly. So far, the Taipei police have distributed pictures of at least nine different versions of ecstasy pills to help KTV and pub owners identify the drug.

But the effectiveness of the marketing shows in the way people talk about ecstasy, trying different varieties, brands, the quality rated by word of mouth. Users tell their friends that green taichi "is really great," or that blue lightening is "low-grade stuff" or that tulip is "really scary."

Isabelle has taken ecstasy between 15 and 17 times over the last six months, roughly once every other weekend. She's 25-years-old, vivacious, has a head-turning figure, and in light of her new drug of choice, she finds it a little ironic that she works as a secretary at a pharmaceuticals manufacturing company.

Like most ecstasy users, Isabelle is young, well-off and well educated. She comes from a solidly middle-class family and has studied in the US. In fact, she is the very antithesis of the nightclub vampire, who under the current catchall phrase "head shakers," is being demonized by the government and the media.

The "head shake" (搖頭) image is based on early reports in the Taiwan media, which showed users shaking their heads for minutes at a time into booming subwoofers at techno clubs. Thus the identification of MDMA users with dancers gone rabid was established. Now, as the drug becomes more popular, it is being associated with almost any activity regarded as socially dangerous.