Pubdate: Mon, 08 Nov 1999 Source: Toronto Sun (CN ON) Copyright: 1999, Canoe Limited Partnership. Contact: http://www.canoe.ca/TorontoSun/ Forum: http://www.canoe.ca/Chat/newsgroups.html Author: Jean Sonmor, SCARING OUR KIDS STRAIGHT File this under dangerous information. I'm writing about drugs and raves and our homegrown "chemical generation" (Irvine Welsh of Trainspotting fame coined the term for the Brit ravers he writes about.) I know just typing the words "drugs" and "raves" in the same sentence will net me a slew of abusive e-mail advising me that I don't know how to write -- or think. They'll suggest I should seriously consider getting a life and LEAVING THE KIDS ALONE. But I can't. It's not that I think Tom Jakobek's flat-footed hang 'em high approach to stamping out raves is feasible or fair. In fact, such hyperbolic language ("A rave is a drug haven. It has to be stopped.") is likely to backfire bigtime. Youth culture is all about belonging. Every parent knows this. Our formerly loving kids turn into teenagers who only vaguely remember who we are, while they bond with startling intimacy and loyalty with friends whose charms are completely incapable of detection by the untutored observer. A wise psychologist once told me that this was the real business of life for the 15- to 24-year-olds. They had two main tasks -- to separate from the family and to form intimate relationships "on the outside." But do they have to do it at raves? Well, no, lots don't, but it's really rather handy that raves are demonized by politicians and the media. The hullabaloo allows the kids to feel persecuted and misunderstood and drives them into each other's arms faster and more completely. The other extremely handy thing is Ecstasy, the drug of choice for raves. It was publicly rehabilitated in 1982 (after being patented by Germany's Merck Co. in 1912 as a diet pill) by American psychopharmacologist Alexander Shulgin. In medical conferences, he described it as the "empathy drug" and urged its use in therapy. It enjoyed a brief vogue in marital therapy where the sense of well-being, self-esteem and euphoric acceptance led to relationship breakthroughs, it's supporters claimed. These new insights lasted long after the drug's effects had worn off, therapists said. Soon mainstream publications like Newsweek were announcing "This is the drug LSD was supposed to be." However, just as with the truth-seekers and LSD, Adam, as it was then called, was soon a party drug, the "yuppie love drug," in fact. There were reports you could buy it with your credit card over the counter in some U.S. bars. And in 1985 the DEA stepped in and made it illegal. (This happened in Canada nine years before.) Illegal and tantalizing, it was soon a highlight of the gay clubs in New York. In Europe, it hit the dance party scene in Ibiza, fuelled the now-famous "Summer of Love" in 1988 and drove parents and politicians mad. In Britain in '94 they brought in a draconian Criminal Justice Act outlawing big parties where the music has a "repetitive beat." (I'm not kidding.) Not surprisingly the kids raved on. And on. But now there are hints the trend might be slowing in Britain -- although the drug czar has estimated that as many as 1 million Brits may be occasional users. Certainly in Canada the number is on the way up. In '96 only 3% of our school kids reported having tried it. But last week in Chilliwack, B.C., police were astounded when they busted an illegal crime lab. They found enough ingredients to make 2 million individual doses in that one basement in a home in a prestige neighbourhood. We've had similar big busts here and in Vancouver since September. Youth culture is tribal, say the trendspotting experts. Kids dress, talk, and zone out according to the dictates of the group. In Canada, raving has just hit critical-mass numbers -- the moment when it moves from the underground kids on the margin to the above-ground kids looking for a fashion statement -- and a place to hang their collective hat. And that's the reason it's dangerous and why we should be very careful how we react. The raves we've seen in the past few months are three or four times as big as they were a couple of years ago. And the ravers are different too. Ask anybody who's been in the scene for a long time and they'll talk about how the little kids are now coming for drugs, not music. Of the three deaths we've had since July, two appear to have been due to inexperienced kids experimenting and another because friends misread the signs of distress. So it's very important how we handle this new problem. The research on the negative effects of Ecstasy is so far slim but scary. We've seen fatal overheating, heart and kidney failure and strokes. But overreaction and misinformation won't scare these kids straight. They need honest information and so do we. - --- MAP posted-by: Derek Rea