THE DOWNSIDE OF NEW `HERBAL DRUGS' : EPHEDRINE-BASED CONCOCTIONS GRAB ATTENTION OF CLUBGOING KIDS - AND A SKEPTICAL FDA.

Byline: Reed Johnson Daily News Staff Writer

His feet locked in a manic shuffle, his mind pointed toward nirvana, Michael X is practicing the ancient art of better living through chemistry.

Nearby stands a plastic cup of ETea, a cherry-colored cocktail of fructose, amino acids and extract of the ancient Chinese herb ephedra. ``Best buzz in the galaxy,'' or so the label claims.

And as a wave of techno-beats washes over the dancers at downtown's Karma nightclub, Michael X is indeed feeling no pain.

But his euphoria may be short-lived. Even as America's tie-dyed club kids tout the virtues of herbal enlightenment, Uncle Sam is pondering whether to place ``herbal drugs'' like ETea in a category closer to crack cocaine.

That irks connoisseurs like Michael X who detect a touch of hysteria in the growing furor over ephedrine-based drinks, pills and potions.

``What, are they going to ban chocolate next?'' demands the 30-year-old struggling screenwriter and University of Southern California master's degree candidate, who declined to give his surname.

``Kids gotta have an outlet,'' he continues as bodies sway around him, ``and this is really positive. We're just here to be together and see each other and celebrate life.''

Maybe so. But the U.S. Food and Drug Administration fears that some herbal foodstuffs may result in the ultimate out-of-body experience: death.

On Wednesday, an FDA advisory committee unanimously recommended that manufacturers be required to place warning labels on dietary supplements containing ephedrine or one of its derivatives. It's not yet clear what the labels would say.

On the question of ephedra's safety, the committee is split. Half says there is no guaranteed safe dosage. The other half thinks there could be, but believes this amount is significantly lower than what is found in many over-the-counter ephedrine products.

Though committee recommendations aren't binding, FDA spokeswoman Judy Foulke says the agency tends to follow them.

The committee's action last week was the latest scrutinization of ephedra since April 10, when the FDA issued a consumer warning after a Long Island college junior collapsed and died several hours after downing eight tablets of the herbal stimulant Ultimate Xphoria. Ultimate Xphoria is one of many legal herbal food products containing ephedrine, derived from the ephedra or ma huang plant, a yellowish Asiatic shrub.

At least 14 other deaths and more than 400 complaints of dizziness, heart palpitations, strokes, liver damage and other maladies have been circumstantially connected, if not explicitly linked, with ephedrine overdoses, FDA officials say.

The agency is sufficiently wary to have set up a toll-free number for consumers to report any adverse effects from ephedrine-based dietary supplements. It's also considering banning over-the-counter sales of products like Ultimate Xphoria, Cloud 9 and the oddly misspelled Herbal Ecstacy.

``We're not trying to be a societal police force or surrogate parent,'' says FDA spokesman Brad Stone, speaking by phone from Washington, D.C. ``Basically, we're just looking at the data to make a determination as to whether certain products may pose a health risk.''

Used by generations of Chinese to dry up stuffy noses, ephedrine and pseudoephedrine are the active ingredients in a host of nonprescription cold and allergy remedies, such as Sudafed. Beverly Hills boutiques stock them. So do new-age crystal shops.

By most accounts, herbal stimulants first surfaced in Los Angeles half a dozen years ago at rave dance parties. In a way, they were a drug in search of a subculture: What LSD and ``In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida'' were to the '60s, herbal drugs and acid-house music aspired to be to the '90s.

Heavily targeted at teens and young adults, they appealed to a generation that craved the panache of recreational drugs without the bummer of cold Tturkey and needle tracks.

Technically, herbal ``drugs'' aren't really drugs - that is, pharmaceuticals - at all. They don't pretend to cure colds or fight baldness. If they did, they'd be subject to much tougher regulation.

Under a 1994 amendment to the federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, many herbs, vitamins and minerals now are termed ``food supplements.'' That means the FDA must prove that a specific product is harmful before imposing a ban.

What some herbal drugs do imply - much to the FDA's chagrin - is that they can wean users off hard-line highs such as Ecstasy, a methamphetamine that became the hip recreational upper of the '80s.

``We saw people in there doing a lot of really bad drugs, a lot of people getting hurt,'' frets Konstantine Theoharis, spokesman for Venice-based Global World Media Corp., which has sold 15 million herbal pills in four years.

Depending on the potency of the plant - and the poetic license of the ad copywriter - herbal drugs also promise to lift your libido, slim your thighs, elevate your tennis game and/or raise your consciousness to Leary-esque altitudes. Cloud 9's mantra is, ``Open your eyes, open your mind.''

Such shamanistic sloganeering fails to impress Dr. Drew Pinsky, who runs the Addiction Medicine Services Program at Las Encinas Hospital in Pasadena and hosts the ``Loveline'' talk show on KROQ-FM.

``I think (herbal drugs) are not terribly dangerous, but they are a real risk and they have certainly no therapeutic value,'' he says.

Herbal street drugs generally retail for anywhere from 50 cents to $3 per tablet. And they're easy to get.

Lion's Lair, a Woodland Hills head shop, was doing a brisk business in Cloud 9 and Herbal Ecstacy several months ago, says employee Chris Ramirez, 20, an herbal enthusiast. Since then, he reckons, trade has dwindled to ``two or three regular customers.''

``People ask, `Isn't that the stuff everybody's died on?' '' says Ramirez, who on one recent day was sporting a goatee, skull's-heTad ring and a ``People Suck'' T-shirt.

Makers and sellers of traditional herb products have taken pains to distance themselves from the new stimulants.

``We're not into making you high, we want to make you healthy,'' says John Chalmers, vice president of the 8-year-old Santa Monica-based Tea Garden Products Inc.

Yet even critics grudgingly concede Global Media's marketing savvy. One print ad seen in High Times magazine shows a young blond woman receiving an Herbal Ecstacy tablet as if it were a Holy Communion wafer.

``They (Global Media) obviously (were) trying to target an audience that was in search of something more illicit,'' says Todd Roberts, editor of Los Angeles-based Urb magazine, a journal of nightclub culture that monitors drug trends.

Herbal users point out that while it's perfectly OK to belt down a dozen malt liquors or puff away at a carton of Marlboros, it someday may be illegal to possess even a single twig of nonprescription ephedra.

Las Encinas Hospital's Pinsky sees the herbal craze as yet another symptom of an aging society's obsession with finding a pharmacological fountain of youth.

``I hate the absurd generalization that something must be good because it comes out of the ground,'' Pinsky adds. ``There are mushrooms and there are plants in South America that will give you the hallucinogenic high of your life, and then you'll drop dead.''

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5 Photos

Photo: (1--Cover--Color) The Agony of Ecstacy

`Herbal dr ugs' promise hard bodies and natural highs, but the FDA isn't swallowing it

(2) Chris Ramirez of Lion's Lair in Woodland Hills says sales of ephedrine-based Cloud 9 and Herbal Ecstacy have slowed in recent months.

David Crane/Daily News

(3--4) The ephedra or ma huang plant, left, has been used by generations of Chinese to fight cold symptoms, and the ephedrine extracted from the root is now available in pills as a food supplement, right.

(5) Ephedrine-based products such as Herbal Ecstacy are circumstantially connected to at least 15 deaths, according to FDA officials.

David Sprague/Daily News