RAVES, DEATH & ECSTASY - YESTERDAY'S NEWS

Cover politics long enough and you learn that few issues ever get dealt
with. They just fall in and out of fashion.

Take public concern over raves - the controversy du jour at this time a
year ago following the 1999 death of Allen Ho, 20, in an illegal,
underground rave from an Ecstasy overdose.

That resulted in an inquest focusing on raves and other Ecstasy-related
deaths across Canada, a media explosion about raves and drugs and a
moratorium on raves imposed by Toronto council, followed by months of
controversy.

Toronto ravers reacted with anger, an effective lobby and a huge rally to
defend, as they put it, their right to dance.

Eventually, the moratorium was lifted and a safety protocol for raves was
worked out among all the affected parties.

The protocol (alerting relevant city authorities and hiring appropriate
security and safety personnel, providing free drinking water, etc.) was
mandatory for the publicly owned Better Living Centre at the CNE, where the
biggest, most controversial raves had taken place, with lots of kids being
wheeled out suffering from ODs. The protocol was voluntary everywhere else,
and the problem was declared solved.

Until a year later, right now, when another kid, this time a 16-year-old,
died of a suspected Ecstasy overdose last weekend at a Toronto rave and,
once again, heartbroken parents are left to ask why.

Only this time, the issue appeared as a blip on the radar that didn't even
last the week. Raves are no longer news, although the fact kids
occasionally die in them, to say nothing of the bigger issue of Ecstasy
abuse, remains.

Over at City Hall's municipal licensing and standards branch, director
Harold Bratten says while there was some interest initially from rave
promoters in following the city's voluntary protocol, it soon died off,
other than for a few raves held in the past year at the Better Living
Centre, where it's mandatory. What the city really needs to control raves
is changes to Ontario's Municipal Act, now in the draft stage, allowing it
to license them.

NO LEGAL AGE LIMIT

A complicating factor is that while drugs like Ecstasy are frequently
smuggled into raves, alcohol is often not served, meaning there is no legal
age limit on who can attend, nor even the routine conditions that apply to
obtaining a liquor licence. The mother of Daniel Engson, 16, who died of a
possible Ecstasy overdose last weekend after attending a Toronto rave, told
reporters she thought he would be safe because no alcohol was being served.
Police said charges in connection with that rave/club are unlikely,
suggesting they don't feel the operators were criminally responsible.

Meanwhile, lawyer Will Chang, volunteer spokesman for the pro-rave Toronto
Dance Safety Committee, which was front and centre on the rave issue last
year, but which is in abeyance today, said just because the city isn't
being called by rave promoters, doesn't mean they haven't taken the
voluntary protocol to heart. He said there's widespread compliance with the
spirit, if not the letter, of the protocol. Promoters now typically use
legal venues, provide security (and drug searches) at the door, plus free,
running water.

This is a major concern since Ecstasy raises core body temperature, and, in
the past, some rave operators shut off running water, or didn't provide it
at all, forcing ravers to buy overpriced bottled water. Chang said
promoters, through security, also enforce an age limit when alcohol is not
being served (the Ho inquest jury recommended 16) and will not admit anyone
felt to be a danger to themselves or others.

Where the protocol isn't being followed, Chang said, it often has to do
with practical problems in the availability of off-duty cops and emergency
personnel.

Chang, 27, who has been attending raves since he was 20, is skeptical about
further regulation of raves, saying while he would have no problem with
reasonable rules, where licensing has been attempted it has often been with
the purpose of banning raves, for example by establishing exorbitant fees.

He organized the huge i-Dance rally promoting rave culture last summer on
Nathan Phillips Square at the height of the rave issue and plans another
this year on Sept. 2 to celebrate the music and as "a show of strength" by
ravers.

All that said, it seems to me the choices here are clear.

Either regulate raves properly through the Municipal Act, or, if there's no
political will to do that (and I don't think there is), then cut the
politically correct nonsense trendy politicians always pay to promoting
"drug education" at raves and just tell parents (and any kids who don't
know), the truth.

That is, first, that if your kid goes to a rave - and this is a particular
concern at all-ages ones - then he or she is going to be exposed to drugs
like Ecstasy. Be warned. Second, if we're not going to regulate these
things in a real way, then at least do what they do in some U.S. cities,
where public health authorities are allowed to set up booths inside giving
kids advice on how to take the drugs as safely as possible and can test
them for purity. Better that than any more dead kids.

With that, I'm taking my 20-year sabbatical from the Sun. Thanks to Doug
Creighton and all who continue the tradition. See you in September.