Pubdate: Sat, 04 Nov 2006
Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC)
Copyright: 2006 The Vancouver Sun
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/vancouver/vancouversun/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477
Author: Chantal Eustace, Vancouver Sun

RCMP ON DRUG PATROL AT TODAY'S RAVE SCENE

Police Program Aims to Curtail the Use of Ecstasy Through Education

YOUTH I They stroll past, two post-pubescent girls in high boots and 
micro miniskirts. Eyes bleary, one of them gazes vacantly into space. 
It is a billboard for drug abuse.

Sgt. Scott Rintoul follows the pair, then shines a flashlight into 
the dilated pupils of 16-year-old Caitlyn. (Like all of the 
self-admitted drug users in this story, she asked to have just her 
first name printed.)

"What are you using?" Rintoul shouts, barely audible over the pulsing 
music of the Dooms Night rave held recently at Vancouver's Pacific Coliseum.

Although Caitlyn denies using drugs, Rintoul finds a crumpled ball of 
plastic wrap in her purse, concealing three small pills. Inside? 
Ecstasy, or "e," a drug that police consider the most sought-after 
hallucinogenic party drug on the street.

"This is really, really dangerous, you know that?" Rintoul says. 
"Three tablets. This is possession with the purpose of trafficking. 
It's a serious offence."

Caitlyn and her friend, Britney, 16, huddle together, appearing 
confused by the RCMP officer's lecture.

"We're at a rave. Everyone else took it," Caitlyn shrugs. "We care -- 
but we're teenagers. We want to do it at least once."

After issuing a warning, Rintoul sends the teens off, shaken and 
stoned, back into the throngs of the rave.

Rintoul shakes his head. As a coordinator of the provincial drug and 
organized crime awareness service with the RCMP, he sees a lot of 
drug use -- but says he still gets shocked by the popularity of 
ecstasy among teens.

Rintoul goes to raves with his team for what he calls 
"interventions." Instead of arresting people, they try to learn as 
much as they can about the party drug scene, the ecstasy involved and 
the people who use the drugs.

"Our main objective is to gather as much intelligence as we possibly 
can," Rintoul says.

As he speaks he keeps an alert eye on the crowd, scanning for 
transactions or suspicious behaviour.

At a rave, this is no easy task.

While rave culture is far more mainstream than it was a decade ago, 
back when raves were impromptu rebellious gatherings of 
electronica-obsessed hipsters, it is still an atmosphere where being 
abnormal is normal.

Tonight, it's dark except for the flashing lasers and spotlights 
blinking to erratic drum and bass rhythms. The ravers are lit up too, 
swinging glow sticks from fingers, necks and wrists. Weed wafts 
through the air. Vendors sell water, junk food and sucking candies.

Walking through the packed dance floor of the Pacific Coliseum is a 
heady experience. Faces and identities blur into the crush of people 
facing a DJ. Some wear Halloween costumes -- sleazy nurses and 
football players seem popular -- but most stick with a less-is-more 
approach to barely-there club attire. Many young women appear to 
simply have forgotten to put on their shirts.

Attending raves, or raving, is no longer a fringe pursuit. Tickets, 
costing upwards of $50, are sold en masse. Dooms Night filled the 
entire Pacific Coliseum -- a far cry from the early days of raves in 
the late '80s and early-'90s, when the dance parties were held in 
warehouses and suburban fields.

Rave culture peaked in the mid-'90s with artists such as Chemical 
Brothers, Moby and Daft Punk attaining mass appeal. And just like the 
raves that helped popularize them, these artists are no longer part 
of a subculture: They're big, commercial entities.

Rintoul says that lurking beneath the celebratory, carnival-like 
atmosphere is something sinister and dangerous.

It's impossible to know what percentage of people at raves take drugs 
but, for many, the all-night fervour is fuelled by tiny pills 
imprinted with happy faces or dolphins.

Rintoul has gone to 150 raves since 1998, and has seen things change 
over the years from a policing perspective.

"The rave scene is dying somewhat," he says, adding that there are 
about four or five big raves in B.C. each year. "And yet the drug is 
more prevalent today than in the late '90s when raves were sort of a 
happening thing."

Much of that has to do with the cost: tablets of ecstasy go for about 
$5 now, Rintoul says.

"Today, it is a street drug. It's a social drug. It's a party drug," 
he says. "It's used in the bars and the nightclubs, house parties, 
school dances -- the whole bit."

Along with the drug's increased accessibility, Rintoul says, the most 
startling changes are molecular. Last year 70 per cent of ecstasy 
tested by Health Canada for the RCMP was mixed with methamphetamine, 
an addictive stimulant.

This is a dangerous mix, says UBC pharmacology professor Alex Dooley 
Goumeniouk, who has attended raves with the RCMP in the past.

"The effect of blending methamphetamine with ecstasy is to increase 
the 'high' -- the pleasure sensation due to enhancing dopamine -- and 
the consequence is an increased addiction potential," Goumeniouk says.

When he first attended a rave with the police last year, he was 
struck by how little people knew about the drug they were taking.

"There's a total absence of knowledge about the neuro-toxicity of 
these compounds," Goumeniouk says. He'd like drug users to know the 
effects of ecstasy -- known in his academic circles as methylene 
dioxy methyl amphetamine or MDMA.

"The going to raves and getting drugs and getting them analysed, 
that's what the RCMP does," Goumeniouk says. "My desire to fit into 
this is through the taking of this information and taking it back to 
the kids who are using these drugs."

Back at the rave, in a smaller room separated from the main dance 
floor, hip-hop beats pour off the turntables. The air is steamy with 
perspiration and bodies push against each other.

A young man dressed in an animal print shakes up the dance floor. 
It's the first time Paulus Lukito, 25, has been to a rave. He says he 
doesn't do drugs. He just likes the party atmosphere.

"It's happy," Lukito says. "You can let loose, have a lot of fun."

Nearby, Rintoul spots someone with less pure intentions. Kevin, 32, 
is caught in mid-transaction and ushered outside to be searched. Six 
pills are seized and Kevin is questioned, then booted from the party.

Kevin tries to get back inside to see more friends and get more 
ecstasy. He says he is surprised by the police reaction to the small 
pills in his wallet: "Everyone has it."

Hundreds of young people mingle in the bleachers around the dance 
floor, sucking lollipops and drinking water from bottles.

Sweaty and smiling, Tissy, 21, sits with a group of friends. She has 
taken two pills so far and plans to take two more in another hour or so.

"It brings my confidence out," she says.

Over the past two years, Tissy admits to having taken too many pills 
to count. She doesn't think it's a problem: "I use it but I can have 
fun without overdoing it."

Her friend Samantha, 19, has swallowed about 70 ecstasy pills over three years.

Samantha says she feels "low" when she comes down from the drug but 
doesn't see the depression as an adverse side-effect.

One young man seated nearby considers himself a rave expert. Matt, 
22, pulls out a blue pill from his pocket as he explains what he 
understands to be the different facets of the drug.

"You've got to research the drug first," Matt says. "I know the guy 
we get it from."

He says there are many different ingredients added to ecstasy -- 
including cat tranquilizers and crystal meth -- so it is difficult to 
know what to expect or what you are ingesting.

In fact, drug analyses of 1,700 pills collected by the B.C. RCMP drug 
awareness team found that most ecstasy pills are mixed with a side 
product. Seventy per cent of the samples included methamphetamine 
while others included substances such as the cat anaesthetic, ketamine.

In street jargon, this is called "flipping," says Rintoul, who 
considers this trend worrisome.

"They're actually making this pill [ecstasy] even stronger," he says.

For about $125, people can order drug-testing kits from websites such 
as dancesafe.org or send in a pill to be tested at ecstasydata.org.

But talk to Rintoul and he'll tell you that all these online sources 
do is give people a false sense of security.

"They have no idea what they are taking," he says.

Near the exit, I pass a cluster of teens who look to be about 15, and 
watch as they sway to the beat. Eyes wide. Faces sweaty. They grin 
vacantly into space.
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MAP posted-by: Elaine