Pubdate: Tue, 19 Jun 2001
Source: Salon (US Web)
Copyright: 2001 Salon
Contact:  http://www.salon.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/381
Author: Janelle Brown
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/raves.htm (Raves)

RAVING LUNACY

Sell A Glowstick, Go To Prison

Authorities are shutting down 21st century raves using 1980s crack-house 
laws -- and turning pacifiers and vicks vaporub into the new drug 
paraphernalia.

Witness the humble glowstick.

This neon yellow tube of light, testament to the wonders of the nontoxic 
chemical reaction, is popular at Britney Spears concerts, Mardi Gras 
parades and summer street fairs.

But because glowsticks are also commonly found at raves, where partiers 
wave them about during their dance-floor kinetics, they have become a 
curious casualty of the government's war on drugs.

An injunction handed down against a group of New Orleans party promoters 
last Wednesday charges that glowsticks -- along with pacifiers, Vicks 
VapoRub and dust masks -- are "drug paraphernalia," and their presence on a 
dance floor is a sign that illegal drug activity is taking place.

In response, the promoters have banned glowsticks from their clubs, along 
with chill rooms, where partiers might go to catch their breath (or where 
they might, in the eyes of the authorities, go to take their drugs) and 
massage tables (where God knows what nefarious activities might occur). The 
injunction seems to imply that if you take away the chill rooms and the 
glowsticks, you take away the drugs.

It's bafflingly backward logic, but then again, the federal government's 
war on drugs hasn't always made sense.

The demonization of the cheery little glowstick is the harbinger of a 
topsy-turvy new front in that increasingly bizarre conflict.

As teens continue to gobble ecstasy, ketamine, speed and GHB at frightening 
rates, everything and everyone is vulnerable. While the owners of venues 
like nightclubs where patrons do illegal acts have always been subject to 
crackdowns, grim prosecutors are now targeting dance clubs with leaky old 
"crack house" laws from the 1980s, and threatening owners and promoters 
with decades in prison.

In this new era, even promoters who try to stop drug use are vulnerable. 
Call the cops on a drug-using patron and you've marked yourself as the 
owner of a drug operation.

Hire an ambulance as a precaution against overdoses, or let a 
harm-reduction group like DanceSafe distribute safety literature, and 
you've done the same thing.

If the New Orleans case should set a national standard, not only will 
ravers lose their glowsticks, but the entire dance community could 
potentially lose its clubs, concert halls and parties -- and, in the most 
drastic cases, ravers could lose their lives.

"The government is engaged in an outright war on nightclubs, which they 
hope will make it appear that they are doing something to stop the drug 
epidemic," says Will Patterson, who runs the Electronic Music Defense and 
Education Fund that raised $50,000 for the Freebass promoters' defense. 
"But if you take away the clubs, [drug users] just go somewhere [else]. The 
nightclubs are, at least, trying to combat drug use in every way they can."

"Lately raves are just a venue for drug purchases. They are no more than 
analogous to a crack house, in which you go buy the drugs and go out the 
back door. Although there's music being played, and the people at the raves 
are saying, 'I come here for the music,' drugs are predominant in these 
rave clubs. And it's just a mix of drugs and music, and it's become a venue 
for drug purchases."

- -- quote from a promotional video distributed by the DEA

By any measure, the government's war on drugs has been a failure.

Despite the fact that the government spent $17.9 billion on the drug war 
last year -- and arrested 1,532,200 people on drug charges the year before 
- -- the number of young adult drug users has not significantly changed since 
it hit a peak in 1997, according to the annual Monitoring the Future study. 
Fifty-four percent of all high school seniors have done drugs; and the 
drugs they are doing are harder.

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, 8.2 percent of all high 
school seniors did MDMA, or ecstasy, in 2000 (up from 5.6 percent the year 
before). Drugs like GHB (a liquid that more mildly mimics the floaty, 
euphoric sensation of ecstasy) and ketamine (an animal tranquilizer that, 
when snorted, sends the user into a hallucinatory state that nears 
catatonia), which once were used primarily by New Agers seeking psychedelic 
epiphanies, are also on the rise among partying young adults and teens.

And the harder the drug, the more dangerous it can be. More than 2,850 
people were admitted to hospitals for what were termed "ecstasy overdoses" 
in 1999, according to the Drug Abuse Warning Network, or DAWN. And although 
DAWN reports that the number of deaths from drugs like ketamine, ecstasy 
and GHB was relatively small between 1994 and 1998 (12 died from GHB, 47 
from ketamine, 27 from ecstasy), those numbers are several years old, and 
the DanceSafe organization now cites at least 100 ecstasy-related deaths. 
The vast majority of these, however, were not overdoses but rather the 
result of overheating on the dance floor, or because pills sold as ecstasy 
were actually dangerous substances like DXM, a cough suppressant that can 
cause overheating if taken in large quantities, and the stimulant PMA.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse calls these "club drugs" -- though 
users, of course, can do them just about anywhere.

Accordingly, however, the government has brought its drug war to the clubs 
themselves. While state and local authorities have been cracking down on 
raves and all-night dance clubs for almost a decade across the country, the 
national hysteria over teens and ecstasy has brought the battle to a fever 
pitch.

Federal authorities are now stepping in, and the new front lines are in New 
Orleans and Panama City Beach, Fla.

When the New Orleans promoters were indicted in January, partiers and 
promoters across the country sat up and paid attention.

Robert Brunet, Brian Brunet and James ("Donnie") Estopinal were partners in 
New Orleans' most popular all-night dance party, Freebass, at the State 
Palace Theater dance club. Every weekend, Freebass would fly in the world's 
top DJs to play for thousands of ecstatic dancers -- just like dozens, if 
not hundreds, of other clubs and parties that take place across the United 
States every weekend.

Undercover cops from the Drug Enforcement Administration and the New 
Orleans Police Department had infiltrated the parties; finding that some 
attendees were doing drugs, the U.S. district attorney in New Orleans drew 
up charges against the promoters.

This, in itself, was not unusual -- promoters have skirmished with 
authorities for years -- but the law under which the three were eventually 
indicted offered a frightening new twist. Federal authorities were using a 
musty, long-forgotten law from 1986, the "Crack House Statute," which was 
originally written to attack the proprietors of drug havens for crack cocaine.

Although the Brunets and Estopinal had not personally sold any drugs at 
their parties, they were charged with "knowingly and intentionally" running 
a club where people did drugs.

The punishment? A possible 20 years in prison, and potentially millions of 
dollars in fines.

The ramifications were far-reaching. If the Brunets and Estopinal were 
found guilty of running a 21st century crack house, then every promoter who 
threw a club, party or similar event where attendees were doing drugs could 
potentially be found similarly liable.

And, other than the occasional Amy Grant concert, are there any music 
events where you can't find attendees who are doing drugs of some sort? The 
indictment was a shot fired across the bow of the entire dance music industry.

"The government has this crazy notion that, somehow or another, a promoter 
should be held criminally responsible as a drug offender because of what 
people in the audience may do," said Arthur A. Lemann III, the lawyer who 
defended Bryan Brunet. "It's a lot like arresting the usher because 
Pavarotti stabs the fat lady at the end of the opera."

The New Orleans promoters faced a legal ordeal that could take years.

It could cost them millions and still land them in jail. On Wednesday, the 
three promoters accepted a plea bargain; their company, Barbecue Inc. 
(rather than the individuals themselves), would plead guilty to one count 
of operating a crack house, and the corporation would pay a $100,000 fine. 
The promoters would not have to serve any jail time; but the settlement 
also included an injunction that forbade the presence of glowsticks, Vicks 
VapoRub, masks, pacifiers, massage tables and chill rooms at future 
parties. (Partiers rub the Vicks under their noses for an additional buzz; 
the pacifiers are to stop tripping dancers from grinding their teeth or 
simply as a fashion accessory; dust masks are for fashion, to enhance the 
effects of the Vicks -- and sometimes just to keep dance-floor dust out of 
their system.)

Lemann calls the plea bargain a "face-saving masquerade" to hide the fact 
that the government didn't have a strong case; and the deal was certainly a 
personal victory for the promoters, who no longer face spending the rest of 
their lives in jail. But the fact remains that a company that throws 
late-night parties and sells glowsticks was found guilty of running a crack 
house; and that decision could still spell disaster for the nation's clubs, 
which could now face similar charges. (Donnie Estopinal did not accept the 
plea bargain; and although he has not been personally reindicted, it 
remains a possibility that he could still go to trail.)

"It is a bad precedent," says University of Tennessee law professor Glenn 
Reynolds, who consulted on a legal brief for the defendants. "Even if the 
charges are bogus, the government proved that they can extort a plea 
agreement, because any rational [promoter] faced with the threat of going 
to jail for 25 years is going to agree to a plea bargain like this that 
makes it all go away. But it's extortion, not justice."

Within months of the New Orleans indictment, prosecutors in Panama City 
Beach, Fla., indicted promoters of a popular club called Club La Vela, home 
to MTV's Spring Break bootyfests and the nation's largest nightclub, under 
crack-house laws as well. In Florida, the war against raves was already 
several years old: In 1997, state officials passed a bill that made it 
illegal for clubs or restaurants that sold liquor to stay open past 2 a.m. 
Two years later, the state police instituted "Operation Heat Rave," raiding 
57 clubs with the intent of shutting them down if they found any evidence 
of drug use. Club La Vela, the most visible club in Florida, became the 
unfortunate locus of the authorities' ire; at one news conference, Panama 
City Beach Police Chief J.B. Holloway went so far as accusing the club's 
owners of "raising [underage patrons] to come back and buy their drugs later."

Club La Vela was raided in early 2000, and police turned up a variety of 
drugs -- although they found no evidence that the owners themselves were 
selling illegal substances. On May 5, 2001, Club La Vela owners Patrick and 
Thorston Pfeffer were slapped with an indictment for allowing drug 
trafficking at their club. Like the New Orleans case, a federal grand jury 
indicted the nightclub owners under the crack house statute; unlike the New 
Orleans case, the government also seized the assets of Club La Vela and 
forbade the owners from leaving the state of Florida. (Club La Vela's 
owners, in turn, are suing the local law-enforcement agencies for 
defamation and depriving them of their right to public assembly.) The case 
is set to go to trial in July.

Meanwhile, the crack-house gambit gains momentum in prosecutors' offices 
across the country.

In Chicago, where several clubs have already been shut down after hosting 
raves, Mayor Richard M. Daley sought a local twist on the approach, which 
would mandate six months in jail for anyone who allows drug sales on his or 
her property.

As Daley said at a press conference in March, "The people who run rave 
parties -- or own the rooms where they take place -- know exactly what's 
going on. But the city does not have sufficient powers to hold them 
responsible." The ordinance passed in early May.

There is a strategic logic to the governments' war on glowsticks and 
pacifiers. For several years, federal drug authorities have been conducting 
a P.R. campaign that labels these toys as "drug paraphernalia" that will 
help identify that drugs are being taken. "What they've done is establish 
the beginning of a legal paper trail to substantiate their claims" and make 
it easier for authorities to target nightclubs, says Will Patterson of 
EMDEF. "Within a month of the indictment in New Orleans, a lot of major 
nightclubs had already stopped selling glowsticks."

But while a few candy ravers might be upset to lose their glowsticks, 
there's a deadlier side to the new crackdown.

A much more dangerous loss to club kids is the "chill room," which the New 
Orleans case also identified as an accouterment to drug use in its list of 
paraphernalia banned from Barbecue Inc.'s parties.

A number of other seemingly innocuous club practices -- like having 
ambulances present, featuring booths from harm-reduction groups like 
DanceSafe on the premises or even pumping in excessive air conditioning -- 
are being targeted by authorities as well.

The dance-music community is not blind to the fact that drugs are a problem 
at raves; and as the rave scene has grown, it's also given birth to 
organizations that promote responsible clubbing.

The most prominent is DanceSafe, a 2-year-old Oakland-based nonprofit 
founded by theology grad student Emanuel Sferios, which teaches "harm 
reduction principles" at clubs. Hundreds of young DanceSafe volunteers, in 
24 chapters around the globe, spend their weekends visiting raves and 
dispensing information about safe drug consumption. Besides counseling 
practical party tips -- reminding kids to drink water, chill out and avoid 
overheating -- volunteers also perform on-the-spot tests of ecstasy 
tablets, in order to ensure that what the ravers are consuming is actually 
MDMA rather than a potentially lethal concoction like DXM or PMA.

The idea is similar to a needle-exchange program: The kids are going to 
take the pills anyway, so let's make sure that they do it safely.

Thus far, DanceSafe has received support from the local police in the 
cities where it has chapters.

As of yet, no volunteer or raver has been arrested for using the service, 
thanks to amnesty arrangements with local police; and according to Sferios, 
the program has been effective.

Although the evidence is still mostly observational, he says, "When people 
start to expect us and our presence becomes common, the number of fake 
pills declines.

If you do a particular party every time, or an event location every time, 
you'll start to see less fake pills, because the dealers with the fake 
pills learn they aren't going to get away with it."

DanceSafe's rapidly growing visibility in the rave community has also 
brought a number of unexpected challenges. According to Sferios, some savvy 
drug dealers have learned they can fool the on-site testing kits by putting 
a tiny amount of MDMA into an otherwise fake pill. (The on-site pill 
testing kits can determine only whether a pill contains any ecstasy, not a 
detailed analysis of its chemical makeup.) "The vast majority of pills with 
MDMA are still pure," says Sferios, "But we are seeing ones now that are 
conscious efforts to fool the kits. It's very disturbing."

Cunning drug dealers, however, are the least of DanceSafe's problems. 
Although DanceSafe gets plenty of support from local police, the federal 
government is a different matter altogether; and DanceSafe is becoming an 
unintentional victim of the crackdown on nightclubs.

When Eddie Jordan, the New Orleans district attorney, introduced the 
charges against the Freebass promoters, he cited a list of evidence that 
the promoters had been encouraging drug use. That "evidence" included not 
only glowsticks, bottled water and chill rooms, but the presence of 
DanceSafe, which distributed literature at the New Orleans parties and 
which, according Jordan, was a group that promoted drug use.

DanceSafe has not yet suffered any legal repercussions for its activities, 
but Jordan's allegations have had a chilling effect on its activities. 
Promoters are now afraid to let DanceSafe into their clubs, lest the 
group's presence -- like that of glowsticks -- be used as evidence against 
them. "In some cities, promoters that were letting us into their parties 
have stopped, because of the New Orleans case," says Sferios, noting 
several parties in the San Francisco Bay Area where his groups' presence 
was prohibited. "The federal emphasis on ecstasy has affected us by 
frightening promoters into taking irrational and dangerous stances on this 
issue. Basically, it's the ostrich syndrome, and it's inhibiting our efforts."

Or, as Patterson describes the dilemma now facing promoters who want to 
work with DanceSafe: "The government has chosen the rave scene to wage 
their war against drugs, and as a promoter I don't know what decision I'd 
make. On one side you've got young people who want to participate in 
education about drugs, but by the very act of engaging in that education 
process they may be putting the promoter at risk of legal problems."

But DanceSafe's raison d'etre is not merely to teach ravers how to be safe, 
but to teach clubs and promoters to provide safer environments -- what 
Sferios calls "safe settings." Much of it is common-sense stuff: Nightclubs 
and parties should provide free drinking water, chill rooms where 
overheating dancers can cool off, air conditioning and, for the largest 
events, on-duty medics or readily available emergency medical services. 
Unfortunately, the federal crackdown on nightclubs means that clubs that do 
provide these kinds of safety measures are essentially calling attention to 
themselves as drug havens.

Explains Reynolds, "What has always been regarded as responsible behavior 
is now going to be regarded as promoters of dangerous behavior.

As a result they'll do things that are dangerous to patrons to protect 
themselves."

Club La Vela, for example, believes that its diligence in battling drugs 
was ultimately used as evidence against it. Says Luke Lirot, the attorney 
representing Thorston Pfeffer: "Club La Vela had a zero drug-tolerance 
policy and would call the police anytime they caught anyone with any 
substance. The police were upset because of all the calls.

But clubs without all those calls of service aren't ferreting out all the 
drug use. Instead of being critical of this practice, they should have been 
commended."

Another major nightclub to learn this difficult lesson was Twilo, in New 
York's Chelsea district, which in 1998 began a long and protracted battle 
against city authorities accusing it of being a drug store for kiddie 
ravers. According to Sferios, Twilo was a perfect example of a "safe 
settings" nightclub -- it provided ample water, pumped cool air into its 
dance floor and even provided a private ambulance in case of drug overdoses 
or other emergencies. Unfortunately, city authorities cited that same 
ambulance as proof that the dance club was a drug den. Although the city's 
first attempt to remove Twilo's cabaret license was initially rebuffed by 
an appeals court as being "arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable," that 
decision was ultimately overturned by the state's highest court; Twilo is 
now closed.

"Twilo was probably the safest place in Manhattan -- if something happened, 
within 30 seconds you would be in the hands of a licensed EMS technician 
and paramedic in a full service ambulance," says Mike Bindra, executive 
producer of Twilo. "The city used that to demonize us.

"We were using the same service the New York Yankees use! Why is it a state 
law that an ambulance must be present at a football game, or at a Metallica 
concert at Madison Square Garden, but when it comes to dance culture and a 
nightclub you must be using it to smuggle drugs?

It's like the Salem witch hunt."

The list of clubs and promoters that have faced trouble with authorities 
goes on and on. Also in New York, the Tunnel and Limelight have been 
fighting similar battles with city authorities. Rave promoters in San Diego 
and Humboldt County, Calif., have had their permits yanked.

In San Francisco, nightclub institutions like 1015 Folsom and the End Up 
have battled closure for years.

And once the nightclubs shut down, new ones rarely open in their places: 
Many cities, including New York and San Francisco, have instituted 
moratoriums (official and unofficial) on any new cabaret licenses or 
late-night dance licenses.

The net effect is a declining pool of legal venues for raves, parties, 
concerts and other dance events.

Some promoters still have hope that if they can get the local authorities 
on their side, they will avoid federal scrutiny. "I don't think the 
[crack-house cases] are affecting me, or anyone else in Southern 
California, because the people I work with in law enforcement are stellar," 
says Philip Blaine, owner of KingFish entertainment in Los Angeles. "Here 
they have a concern for the public well-being -- they understand that kids 
will go out at night, and would rather have them going to a place that's 
planned and put together, than going under a city bridge and putting on a 
boombox where if they get hurt no one will find them until Monday, when 
their bodies are decaying."

In San Francisco, too, the community is effectively fighting back. In the 
late 1990s, many of the city's late-night dance clubs -- including the 
Trocadero, Club DV8 and VSF -- lost their permits, thanks to drug and noise 
complaints and a zero-tolerance attitude on the part of local officials.

In July 1999, a group of local party promoters organized the San Francisco 
Late Night Coalition, a political-action committee dedicated to keeping the 
city's nightlife alive.

Thanks to extensive lobbying and outreach with both nightclub owners and 
local officials, the group has successfully saved many of the city's 
remaining dance venues.

These promoters and many others believe that the most naive hope of the 
federal crackdown on nightclubs is that if you remove the venue, you will 
remove the problem.

Even if there are no more official places to dance, wave glowsticks and 
hang out in chill rooms, that doesn't mean that fans of electronic music 
won't continue to dance and do drugs.

Instead, the electronic music scene will simply go underground to find 
places to party. Nothing motivates a music subculture more than the 
potential to defy authority.

"If they shut down every rave and nightclub and place of public assembly in 
the country, nothing will happen except that the dangers of drug intake 
will go underground, and people who make bad choices will pay the ultimate 
price," says Lirot, as he battles the Club La Vela case. "Whereas in the 
alternate settings, smart people take precautions and deal with problems 
professionally and safely and in a medically secure fashion.

Chasing things underground is never a good idea -- although society thinks 
they benefit in the short term, they will end up paying for it in the long 
term."
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