RCMP ON DRUG PATROL AT TODAY'S RAVE SCENE

Police Program Aims to Curtail the Use of Ecstasy Through Education

YOUTH I They stroll past, two post-pubescent girls in high boots and
micro miniskirts. Eyes bleary, one of them gazes vacantly into space.
It is a billboard for drug abuse.

Sgt. Scott Rintoul follows the pair, then shines a flashlight into
the dilated pupils of 16-year-old Caitlyn. (Like all of the
self-admitted drug users in this story, she asked to have just her
first name printed.)

"What are you using?" Rintoul shouts, barely audible over the pulsing
music of the Dooms Night rave held recently at Vancouver's Pacific Coliseum.

Although Caitlyn denies using drugs, Rintoul finds a crumpled ball of
plastic wrap in her purse, concealing three small pills. Inside?
Ecstasy, or "e," a drug that police consider the most sought-after
hallucinogenic party drug on the street.

"This is really, really dangerous, you know that?" Rintoul says.
"Three tablets. This is possession with the purpose of trafficking.
It's a serious offence."

Caitlyn and her friend, Britney, 16, huddle together, appearing
confused by the RCMP officer's lecture.

"We're at a rave. Everyone else took it," Caitlyn shrugs. "We care --
but we're teenagers. We want to do it at least once."

After issuing a warning, Rintoul sends the teens off, shaken and
stoned, back into the throngs of the rave.

Rintoul shakes his head. As a coordinator of the provincial drug and
organized crime awareness service with the RCMP, he sees a lot of
drug use -- but says he still gets shocked by the popularity of
ecstasy among teens.

Rintoul goes to raves with his team for what he calls
"interventions." Instead of arresting people, they try to learn as
much as they can about the party drug scene, the ecstasy involved and
the people who use the drugs.

"Our main objective is to gather as much intelligence as we possibly
can," Rintoul says.

As he speaks he keeps an alert eye on the crowd, scanning for
transactions or suspicious behaviour.

At a rave, this is no easy task.

While rave culture is far more mainstream than it was a decade ago,
back when raves were impromptu rebellious gatherings of
electronica-obsessed hipsters, it is still an atmosphere where being
abnormal is normal.

Tonight, it's dark except for the flashing lasers and spotlights
blinking to erratic drum and bass rhythms. The ravers are lit up too,
swinging glow sticks from fingers, necks and wrists. Weed wafts
through the air. Vendors sell water, junk food and sucking candies.

Walking through the packed dance floor of the Pacific Coliseum is a
heady experience. Faces and identities blur into the crush of people
facing a DJ. Some wear Halloween costumes -- sleazy nurses and
football players seem popular -- but most stick with a less-is-more
approach to barely-there club attire. Many young women appear to
simply have forgotten to put on their shirts.

Attending raves, or raving, is no longer a fringe pursuit. Tickets,
costing upwards of $50, are sold en masse. Dooms Night filled the
entire Pacific Coliseum -- a far cry from the early days of raves in
the late '80s and early-'90s, when the dance parties were held in
warehouses and suburban fields.

Rave culture peaked in the mid-'90s with artists such as Chemical
Brothers, Moby and Daft Punk attaining mass appeal. And just like the
raves that helped popularize them, these artists are no longer part
of a subculture: They're big, commercial entities.

Rintoul says that lurking beneath the celebratory, carnival-like
atmosphere is something sinister and dangerous.

It's impossible to know what percentage of people at raves take drugs
but, for many, the all-night fervour is fuelled by tiny pills
imprinted with happy faces or dolphins.

Rintoul has gone to 150 raves since 1998, and has seen things change
over the years from a policing perspective.

"The rave scene is dying somewhat," he says, adding that there are
about four or five big raves in B.C. each year. "And yet the drug is
more prevalent today than in the late '90s when raves were sort of a
happening thing."

Much of that has to do with the cost: tablets of ecstasy go for about
$5 now, Rintoul says.

"Today, it is a street drug. It's a social drug. It's a party drug,"
he says. "It's used in the bars and the nightclubs, house parties,
school dances -- the whole bit."

Along with the drug's increased accessibility, Rintoul says, the most
startling changes are molecular. Last year 70 per cent of ecstasy
tested by Health Canada for the RCMP was mixed with methamphetamine,
an addictive stimulant.

This is a dangerous mix, says UBC pharmacology professor Alex Dooley
Goumeniouk, who has attended raves with the RCMP in the past.

"The effect of blending methamphetamine with ecstasy is to increase
the 'high' -- the pleasure sensation due to enhancing dopamine -- and
the consequence is an increased addiction potential," Goumeniouk says.

When he first attended a rave with the police last year, he was
struck by how little people knew about the drug they were taking.

"There's a total absence of knowledge about the neuro-toxicity of
these compounds," Goumeniouk says. He'd like drug users to know the
effects of ecstasy -- known in his academic circles as methylene
dioxy methyl amphetamine or MDMA.

"The going to raves and getting drugs and getting them analysed,
that's what the RCMP does," Goumeniouk says. "My desire to fit into
this is through the taking of this information and taking it back to
the kids who are using these drugs."

Back at the rave, in a smaller room separated from the main dance
floor, hip-hop beats pour off the turntables. The air is steamy with
perspiration and bodies push against each other.

A young man dressed in an animal print shakes up the dance floor.
It's the first time Paulus Lukito, 25, has been to a rave. He says he
doesn't do drugs. He just likes the party atmosphere.

"It's happy," Lukito says. "You can let loose, have a lot of fun."

Nearby, Rintoul spots someone with less pure intentions. Kevin, 32,
is caught in mid-transaction and ushered outside to be searched. Six
pills are seized and Kevin is questioned, then booted from the party.

Kevin tries to get back inside to see more friends and get more
ecstasy. He says he is surprised by the police reaction to the small
pills in his wallet: "Everyone has it."

Hundreds of young people mingle in the bleachers around the dance
floor, sucking lollipops and drinking water from bottles.

Sweaty and smiling, Tissy, 21, sits with a group of friends. She has
taken two pills so far and plans to take two more in another hour or so.

"It brings my confidence out," she says.

Over the past two years, Tissy admits to having taken too many pills
to count. She doesn't think it's a problem: "I use it but I can have
fun without overdoing it."

Her friend Samantha, 19, has swallowed about 70 ecstasy pills over three years.

Samantha says she feels "low" when she comes down from the drug but
doesn't see the depression as an adverse side-effect.

One young man seated nearby considers himself a rave expert. Matt,
22, pulls out a blue pill from his pocket as he explains what he
understands to be the different facets of the drug.

"You've got to research the drug first," Matt says. "I know the guy
we get it from."

He says there are many different ingredients added to ecstasy --
including cat tranquilizers and crystal meth -- so it is difficult to
know what to expect or what you are ingesting.

In fact, drug analyses of 1,700 pills collected by the B.C. RCMP drug
awareness team found that most ecstasy pills are mixed with a side
product. Seventy per cent of the samples included methamphetamine
while others included substances such as the cat anaesthetic, ketamine.

In street jargon, this is called "flipping," says Rintoul, who
considers this trend worrisome.

"They're actually making this pill [ecstasy] even stronger," he says.

For about $125, people can order drug-testing kits from websites such
as dancesafe.org or send in a pill to be tested at ecstasydata.org.

But talk to Rintoul and he'll tell you that all these online sources
do is give people a false sense of security.

"They have no idea what they are taking," he says.

Near the exit, I pass a cluster of teens who look to be about 15, and
watch as they sway to the beat. Eyes wide. Faces sweaty. They grin
vacantly into space.