This is a recent article are from USA Today, an American national daily. Notice the mention of the Toronto raid, and the implication of its futility.



Feds crack down on Ecstasy
April 19, 2000

By Donna Leinwand and Gary Fields, USA TODAY

Sniffing out Ecstasy

Should police raid raves in an effort to crack down on Ecstasy?

NORTH BERGEN, N.J. - In a suburban ballroom, music without melody pounds from speakers piled almost to the ceiling. At this nine-hour rave party, only the ribcage-rattling bass matters. About 2,000 teenagers, most wearing nylon UFO brand parachute pants, writhe and hop on a packed dance floor. Alcohol is conspicuously absent, but the drug Ecstasy is everywhere.

The aspirin-size pill provides the high of choice among these pencil-thin girls and hyperactive boys. They say it heightens their sensitivity to the vibrating bass, tickling the skin and sending chills up the spine.

"Everything feels good,'' says Tricia Kaz, 18, a freshman at Seton Hall University in South Orange, N.J. She spent three weeks at a drug rehabilitation center after her mother found out about her Ecstasy habit, but she says she doesn't see the harm of a drug that produces no hangover or physical craving.

Kaz and the other youths might be mistaken. New studies show that users of Ecstasy risk the possibility of brain damage from prolonged use. Law enforcement is intensifying its efforts to stop the growing demand for Ecstasy and to halt organized crime's penetration of the market.

The pill, at $20 or so a pop, acts a little like stimulants such as methamphetamine and a little like a hallucinogen such as LSD. A hit produces a warm, fuzzy sense of well-being and the manic energy to dance until dawn. However, studies indicate that Ecstasy, the nickname for the drug compound 3,4 methylenedioxy-methamphetamine (MDMA), clicks off brain cells crucial to memory and sleep.

"The party's over," says Alex Stalcup, a physician who runs a drug treatment center in Concord, Calif. "Ecstasy hurts the brain. It is no longer a hypothesis. The drug is toxic. It is no longer appropriate to consider it a recreational drug."

Until recently, law enforcement had shrugged its shoulders. Because Ecstasy users keep to themselves at dance parties, known as raves, there was no violence or theft associated with drugs, as there is with drugs such as cocaine and heroin. The Ecstasy scene is becoming more dangerous as the lure of phenomenal profits attracts organized crime. The drug costs just pennies to make. The international crime agency Interpol, the U.S. Customs Service and the Drug Enforcement Administration have tracked Israeli crime groups and Russian mobsters trading in Ecstasy. Last month, federal authorities arrested Sammy "The Bull" Gravano, a former mafia hitman, for allegedly running an Ecstasy ring in Arizona that distributed 25,000 pills a week, worth half a million dollars on the street.

Between Oct. 1, 1999, and Feb. 29, Customs agents confiscated 4 million tablets, 1 million more than in all of last year. Seizures of Ecstasy, classified as a Schedule I drug, like LSD and heroin, are expected to grow eightfold by the end of the year.

"It's truly a global business, and it has completely erased all the old routes law enforcement had mapped out for the smuggling of traditional drugs like heroin, cocaine and marijuana," says U.S. Customs Commissioner Raymond Kelly. Crime groups use computers to track international mail shipments of the drug from the Netherlands and Belgium through dummy addresses in Europe and into the United States.

While his agency and others step up policing efforts, Kelly emphasizes that teenagers need to be warned about the drug's potential danger. "It has the 'love-drug, hug-drug' label to it," Kelly says. "Kids and their parents don't realize it has long-term implications. It is a killer, category one, dangerous drug. "

Inside the all-night rave

Raves began in the 1980s as informal groups gathered on farms or in vacant buildings to listen to bass-heavy music, take Ecstasy and dance all night. Now, an Internet search will turn up more than two dozen raves in the USA on any weekend, many in legal venues that promise safety, portable potties and laser light shows. At the New Jersey party, a bouncer checked each "raver" for weapons and drugs, but the tiny pills slipped by easily. Ravers say they hide them in their shoes or take them beforehand. Marijuana passed security, too. Teens rolled joints openly and the odor of pot permeated the "chill out" room off the main dance floor, where the ravers cool off after dancing.

The crowd was middle class, overwhelmingly white and unfailingly polite. Most were teenagers or in their early 20s. They had paid $20, $15 with a flier, to get in. Many said they don't take drugs but relish the atmosphere of acceptance at raves that they do not find among the cliques at school.

"Drugs are everywhere. They're in school," said Sunny Pae, 20, a history major at New York University. " It's all about the music, the love, the vibe."

Even those who shun the drugs admitted that an Ecstasy undercurrent defines the party, the music and even the fashion. The concession stand catered to Ecstasy users. The drug causes involuntary jaw clenching and teeth grinding, and nonstop dancing leads to dehydration. Ravers suck pacifiers to unclench their jaws and lollipops to lubricate their mouths. Two lollipops cost $1. A bottle of water or fruit juice costs $3.

As the night wore on in North Bergen, teenagers huddled cross-legged in clumps, knees and shoulders touching or bodies intertwined like nesting hamsters. New acquaintances kissed for hours or massaged one another's shoulders.

"Everything is so much better when you're on drugs," said a 15-year-old high school freshman from Bayonne, N.J., who sucked madly on a pacifier strung around her neck. Her name is being withheld because of her age. In a midriff-baring tank top and nylon pants, this A-plus honor student danced wildly for hours, fueled by three Ecstasy pills. "Raving is not a crime," she said.

Possessing and taking Ecstasy are illegal, but the police rarely raid these well-publicized raves.

In New Jersey, possession of Ecstasy carries a sentence of three to five years in prison, but a first-time offender could serve less than a year in county jail, says John Dangler, a Morris County, N.J., prosecutor, and "that's if it is a truckload or a tablet."

Police know that Ecstasy and a handful of other drugs saturate these parties. Raiding raves is an inefficient use of resources, police say. In March, police raided a Toronto rave attended by 12,000 people but confiscated just 300 Ecstasy tablets.

"Cops are still out there chasing major violent crimes like murder and rapes and serious drug dealers," says James Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police. "What would a cop rather be doing, chasing a guy who just put a gun in a clerk's ear at the store or arresting a kid who is using a drug that doesn't promote violence?"

Police departments concentrate on street-corner drugs because of their link to violence and crime, says Trinka Porrata, a retired Los Angeles narcotics detective. Police, she says, are conflicted about raiding raves.

"If you bust up a party, then you're sending 800 kids on drugs on the road," Porrata says. "At a real rave, they go there, they do their drugs, they pass out, they sleep it off and then they go home."

Dangers of Ecstasy

Yet the urgency to get the drugs out of reach of teenagers has intensified as new scientific studies warn that Ecstasy causes brain damage.

Stalcup, the drug addiction doctor who describes himself as a "prototypical aging hippie" and has tried Ecstasy, often spends Saturday nights at San Francisco-area raves, where he treats overheated and dehydrated teenagers. He understands the allure.

"Ecstasy really is quite grand," Stalcup says. "You feel warm and close to people. You want to hug people. You feel ecstatic and full of human kindness."

Still, he worries. Scientists have studi

neilZ

coming at this from another perspective, from a scene mostly dominated by what city officials consider illegal events...

this is a stringent measure but not an outright ban. chicago is at least making some effort to control safety by requiring permits for events.
www.suntimes.com/output/news/rave11.html
------------------------------------------
Council panel OKs crackdown on rave parties

May 11, 2000

BY FRAN SPIELMAN CITY HALL REPORTER

Illicit warehouse parties with designer drugs that have become the "rave" among teenagers would have to be licensed or everyone from the building owner to the disc jockey would face $10,000 fines, under a crackdown approved Wednesday by a City Council committee.

"There are date rape drugs. There is nitrous oxide. . . . We've heard all the horror stories about young people ingesting these things. They don't even know what they're ingesting half the time. We're trying to save lives," said Ald. Jesse Granato (1st), whose fast-growing ward has been the scene of rave parties.

New tools are needed to target illicit parties that stay one step ahead of police, according to Shakespeare District Sgt. Tim Edeling. Last year, Edeling found a 15-year-old passed out behind a tank of nitrous oxide at a rave party.

"A lot of these, we stumble upon. They're word of mouth, or we get a phone call about loud noise. The beat car goes over there and sees a big party going on, but by the time we get enough responding units, they disappear," Edeling said.

"The drugs are dangerous. The fire issues are dangerous. There's only one way out of a lot of these places. They have hot lights and fabric riveted to the ceilings. They sell balloons with nitrous oxide and other flammable materials. There could be a flash fire. It could be deadly."

For years, Chicago teenagers have been paying anywhere from $5 to $25 to attend underground raves, which usually start in the wee hours and can last until 10 a.m.

Last winter, Chicago police started finding teenagers unconscious at such parties as designer drugs like Ecstasy have gained in popularity across the city. Ecstasy, GHB and nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, are now the drugs of choice at raves.

On Wednesday, the City Council's License Committee advanced an ordinance to cast the broadest possible net over those who make a fast buck at the expense of kids.

Co-sponsored by Granato and Ald. Ted Matlak (32nd), the legislation would require the "owner, lessee or manager" of the property used as a party site to first obtain a public place of amusement license.

If an unlicensed party is held, everyone from the owner, lessee and manager to the party producer, presenter and "person conducting the amusement" would face fines as high as $10,000.

The disc jockey provision is particularly important because he's the least mobile of the bunch, Edeling said. "The DJ really can't leave because he has thousands of dollars worth of equipment tied up there. So we have a captive audience.

"A lot of these bigger events will fly their DJs in from around the country," Edeling said. "They're the draw. They're the headliners who bring the kids out. If DJs know it's dangerous to come to Chicago because you could face up to a $10,000 fine, they may think twice about coming here."

Matlak said he's particularly sensitive to rave dangers because a high school classmate died from exposure to nitrous oxide. "Now, you've got 100 people with diminished capacity ingesting potentially poisonous materials. What happens if somebody goes down?" he said.


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Roches

this is sick. absolutely sick.

chicago, birthplace of house, yet another city where it's illegal to listen to electronic music.

we're under attack everywhere it seems. are we really that dangerous?

oh yeah... all MDMA syntheses involve at least one controlled (watched) chemical.

Jess

very interesting...

dieznyik

things would be so much easier if people simply STOPPED DOING E... ugh :P that first article is hella-harsh! nice way to give your scene a good rep with quotes like that.

Vidman

Permits for raves? Hah, another way for the government to make money so they can give themselves more raises. Fuck that!

spoony d

permit for raves

a way to pay for ensuring YOUR safety. It establishes a certain amount of credibility for the promoter decreasing the liklihood that YOU will be ripped off. It provides that an event will be more or less harmless, decreasing the chance that YOU will die in a pool of your own vomit from dehydration and hyperthermia.

Once we establish a legal penalty system for promoters who do not do their job, we will see an overall improvement in conditions at events both large and small.

or are you happy paying a whack of dough every weekend for entry into a 1000 person game of russian roulette?

neilZ

follow up to the chicago rave ordinance:
[this message was forwarded from a local detroit email list]
http://www.egroups.com/message/part...83?&start=10878

the chicago tribune article referred to is located at: http://chicagotribune.com/news/nati...5220022,FF.html

(the site requires free registration)

neilZ

this may have been posted elsewhere, but this other chicago tribune article points to the appearance in the US of PMA (paramethoxyamphetamine), a substance once seen in Canada in the '70s.

it also reveals that some officials (in Chicago) realize that the potential harm from 'party' drugs can occur anywhere and are urging the involement of schools and parents to educate people.
http://chicagotribune.com/news/metr...5190218,FF.html

[This message has been edited by neilZ (edited May 25, 2000).]