NEW: LAWMAKERS FOCUS ON RAVE DRUG CULTURE

AUSTIN - How quickly children of the flower children learn mama's and
daddy's habits.

It should come as no surprise that the generation that popularized
recreational drugs and created a market for all sorts of legal drugs has
created a new and very different generation of drug abusers.

So, children of the '60s and '70s, if you find a baby's pacifier in your
teen-age son's room, or if you daughter comes home reeking of Vick's
VapoRub, or if he says he's going to a "safe," nonalcoholic "rave" party,
or if you hear her tell a friend she's "rolling," it might be time for a talk.

Such clues might hint that Junior is using Ecstasy or another "club drug"
that, experts say, can lead to more dangerous, addictive drug use.

But all that Junior knows now is that these little pills, about the size of
an aspirin, give him a nice rush that makes him feel like he can dance all
night while raves, or drug parties, provide the atmosphere to do both.

The Texas House Public Safety Committee held a brief but eye-opening
hearing this month on an interim legislative charge: "to study trends and
causes in drug use by teens and young adults."

The message legislators got was that today's youth are hip for raves and
club drugs.

"Although lifetime use of many drugs declined (1998-2000), other drugs
continue to be problematic," Dr. Tom Wanser, head of the Texas Commission
on Alcohol and Drug Abuse, told lawmakers in the May 15 hearing. "Ecstasy,
Ketamine, GHB, GBL and Rohypnol continue to spread and are reported by the
DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) as widely available in clubs and at
raves."

Such testimony left an impact.

"Some of us are fairly naive," said state Rep. Bob Turner, D-Voss. "We
don't realize what is happening."

Police and narcotics experts said raves are held in nightclubs, abandoned
warehouses or out in a pasture. They feature intense, often sexual,
high-volume music, high-energy, choreographed dancing and light shows, and
kids waving glowsticks.

And, police testified, raves are veritable drug supermarkets where
cavorting teens chomp on pacifiers, wear painters' masks smeared with
Vick's VapoRub and get wild, high and taken for a ride.

Pacifiers because Ecstasy causes grinding of the teeth. Vick's to enhance
the heat of the high, or roll. And ripped off because promoters sell
dehydrated ravers $8 bottles of water while the dealers get up to $25 for
an Ecstasy pill, or 100 times its manufacturing cost.

While Ecstasy is the drug of choice at raves, Wanser said, Rohypnol, the
"date-rape drug," is a cheaper, but addictive alternative, at $2 or $3 a
pill. Another raver's drug of choice, Ketamine, or "Special K," ordinarily
is used to tranquilize animals.

Raves are popular in cities and are moving into rural areas, said Sgt. Tom
Dickson of the enforcement division of the Texas Alcohol and Beverage
Commission.

Rural raves last summer in the Hill County and on the Bolivar Peninsula
near Galveston drew thousands of ravers, clogging roads, ferry slips and
hospitals and stretching thin local police, he said.

San Antonio police credit aggressive, community-based policing for limiting
raves in the Alamo City.

"We've been fortunate; we haven't seen that explosion other cities have
seen," San Antonio police Sgt. Gabe Trevino said.

Some cities, particularly New Orleans, have also used a federal law that
sets stiff penalties for anyone who manages or controls "any building, room
or enclosure" where controlled substances are manufactured or sold.

Additionally, the National Drug Intelligence Center advises local police to
identify rave promoters, compile emergency medical service records, conduct
undercover operations and execute search warrants to seize financial
records related to rave events.

The undercover work is necessary, police say, because they're dealing with
an underground culture where raves are promoted to computer-savvy kids on
the Internet or by word of mouth or fliers distributed at places music
lovers inhabit, such as record stores.

This fall the Legislature's Public Safety Committee is expected to
recommend laws or actions needed to get a grip on the drug culture raves
promulgate.