By Reuters, 06/20/01

LONDON -- Officials are investigating how a 20-month-old girl came to swallow an ecstasy tablet, a local government spokesman says.

The child, who has not been named, was treated in the intensive care unit at University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff and has now been discharged.

"We can confirm this incident happened, and our role now is to find out what happened, as we would usually do in such cases," a spokesman for Swansea County Council said Tuesday.

A 25-year-old man from Morriston, Swansea, has been charged with assault and possession of a class A drug following the incident, police said.

Ecstasy is the common name for MDMA, a stimulant and hallucinogen popular at "raves," or all-night dance parties. It affects children much more than adults as the amount of the drug in a tablet is geared toward an adult body's weight.