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The Ecstasy And The Agony...
| Good [+1]Toggle ReplyLink» Nuclear replied on Thu Apr 17, 2003 @ 6:19am |
 Coolness: 2749320 | TNF933: The ecstasy and the agony...
Starting next month in Montreal, going to listen to DJs and dance music will not just be a weekend destination but also probable cause. Much like an old prizefighter too punch-drunk to stop fighting, Montreal police have decided to open another front on their losing war on drugs. Beginning Sept 2 with the Cream show in Jarry Park, everyone showing up with their $85 ticket will be stopped at the door and their bags, pockets and even shoes searched for ecstasy. This new crackdown comes as coppers around the world, started by Barry McCaffrey, former head of the American Drug Enforcement Agency, the cappo-di-tutti-capo of the anti-narcotic mafia, have chosen to target ecstasy as the next great drug threat, following losing campaigns against pot in the '50s, heroin in the '60s, cocaine in the '70s and crack in the '80s. Journalists should never make predictions, but I feel quite confident that given the assistance of history, this new campaign will be as futile as the last efforts. In the grand scheme of things, this isn't a bad thing. What's disturbing is the collateral damage: the lives ruined and even taken by the focus on enforcement instead of education. Now, I'm not stupid enough to think that the police will come up empty after running their dragnet through Cream. They did a test-run of their new system at the cynically-named Oasis event at the Molson Centre in late July. Rave promoters had to agree to the new policy with the proverbial guns to their heads: cops had shut down the Swirl event at the Big O this spring and, according to promoters, told them that would be the way of the future if they didn't play ball with the cops. The tally at Oasis? 42 busts, 40 for possession, later dropped, and two for dealing. Montreal police say that the target in this fight is not recreational ecstasy users but the biker gangs that, in classic capitalist fashion, allegedly control the manufacturing, distribution and retail ends of the ecstasy market. Let's be charitable and assume for just a second that this is something more than simply a chance for the Hells Angels to bitch slap the cops one more time. Let's assume for just a second that, unlike every other clash between the cops and the bikers, this one might weaken the gangs' control of the drug trade in Montreal. Even if all this is true - you can stop giggling now - the question must still be: how many casualties are the cops willing to accept? How many 16-year-olds in phat pants will die from this crackdown? The pattern is clear and has been seen following crackdowns in the United States and in Europe. Creating police-sanctioned raves necessarily and inevitably creates underground, police-free events. The rave scene, just like the hippie and the punk scenes before it, formed in opposition to mainstream culture and forges its identity with the authenticity that only rebellion in the margins brings. These - sometimes literally - underground raves, unsupervised, unregulated, furtive, in jury-rigged spaces, exacerbate the risk of overheating and dehydrating, the twin causes of almost all deaths by ecstasy. Let's be clear on the medicine: there is not enough clinical evidence to assess the long-term health risks of ecstasy. For that matter, there is not enough long-term clinical evidence to know if ecstasy is any more dangerous than any other pill that tinkers with the brain's level of serotonin, like Prozac or Zoloft. These drugs are too new; we just don't know. Taking any pill in ignorance is stupid; taking ecstasy without enough water and chances to cool down can be fatal. Toronto is a warning for what might befall our fair town. Two years ago, Julian Fantino, the no-nonsense new Toronto police chief declared raves were public enemy Number 1 and his boys and girls in blue adopted an almost-no-tolerance policy: if ecstasy was found in bars and clubs holding raves, they would lose their liquor licences and be shut down. The tragically predictable next scene: kids start dying. There was Beth Robertson, a young parent, who died of kidney failure - the result of massive, systemic hyperthermia and dehydration - after too many hours at an underground rave. There was Allan Ho, dead after an illicit rave at an unventilated parking garage. There were six others in one year, so many that Dr Stephen Kish, a professor at U of T, called Toronto the ecstasy-death capital of the world. After public pressure and the coroner's report into Ho's death called for an end to the crackdown, the city rescinded its ban - just in time to watch us repeat their deadly mistakes. In the face of this history, Montreal police say they hope an underground scene doesn't take off. Maybe one won't spring up; maybe Moby has sold so many of his ditties as Jetta commercials there no longer is any rebellious impulse left in the clubs. Maybe Montreal scenesters will just see the thin blue line outside their nocturnal destinations as simply another hassle to be overcome in just the right Diesel outfit. But if, as all near history suggests, the MUC cops' crackdown does cause the creation of an underground scene, their hopes will just be shallow PR. And this column won't be scare-mongering or cop-bashing. It will be prediction. I hope not. |
| Good [+1]Toggle ReplyLink» OMGSTFUDIEPLZKTX replied on Thu Apr 17, 2003 @ 11:49am |
 Coolness: 67195 | "Let's be clear on the medicine: there is not enough clinical evidence to assess the long-term health risks of ecstasy. For that matter, there is not enough long-term clinical evidence to know if ecstasy is any more dangerous than any other pill that tinkers with the brain's level of serotonin, like Prozac or Zoloft. These drugs are too new; we just don't know. Taking any pill in ignorance is stupid; taking ecstasy without enough water and chances to cool down can be fatal. "
Just look at someone who's taken E for a while and you have you evidence that its long term effects suck. Frankly, E is illegal, raves are not. Raves get bad reps because of E. So, a simple solution. Don't do E! |
| Good [+1]Toggle ReplyLink» somekid replied on Fri Apr 18, 2003 @ 12:03am |
 Coolness: 85685 | I liked the article, I don't think this will actualy affect the bikers at all. |
The Ecstasy And The Agony...
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