RAVE PARTIES CHALLENGE COAST

Law Enforcement Scrambling To Deal With Events

Authorities on the Mississippi Gulf Coast are scrambling to find a solution
to a growing problem - techno-music dance parties with underage drinking
and illegal drug use.

Rave parties have caught some law enforcement agencies by surprise.

Sgt. Ken Broadus of the Jackson County Sheriff's Department said he and
other officers only recently realized the plethora of problems rave parties
can cause law enforcement.

On March 9, Jackson County Sheriff's Department officers raided a rave and
there were 70 to 100 drunken or impaired juveniles with vehicles they drove
to a secluded area of the county.

Broadus said his department had trouble making sure all the teens got home
safely.

He said next time he'll bring buses to detain the teenagers until he calls
their parents.

Harrison County Sheriff George Payne said he has also seen the problems
rave parties can create.

"There's no question that rave parties are drug parties where young people
can go and uninhibitedly use drugs," Payne said. "It's a way to make a
buck. I've never seen a legitimate rave party."

Mississippi narcotics agent Bruce Lynd said those who organize raves can
make a great profit. At a large rave, he said, a promoter can make
thousands of dollars selling admission tickets, water, balloons for
breathing a type of laughing gas, glow sticks and Vick's inhalers.

Dust masks and other paraphernalia are sold to enhance the
sensory-heightening effects of the drug ecstasy, a hallucinogenic amphetamine.

Officers confiscated 21 bags of marijuana and 76 ecstasy pills at a rave in
Jackson County earlier this month.

They arrested three adults on misdemeanor charges of contributing to the
delinquency of minors and disorderly conduct.

Gulfport police stopped a rave at a warehouse three weeks ago and made
three arrests.

Police in Ocean Springs confiscated a flier about a rave that was passed
out at Ocean Springs High School.