Asa Hutchinson wasn't too thrilled last month when his 18-year-old son said he wanted to go to a rave.

Hutchinson, a Republican congressman from Arkansas, was hand-picked just weeks before by President George W. Bush to take charge of the Drug Enforcement Agency. Hutchinson knew raves were connected with club drugs like Ecstasy, a hallucinogenic wrapped up in a small, $25 euphoria-producing pill. But his son persisted, and offered a surprising proposal.

"He said, 'Dad, I'm just going for the music, and if you have any doubts about it, why don't you go with me?' " Hutchinson recalled Wednesday in a packed hotel ball-room in Oak Brook.

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