TAINTED ECSTACY BELIEVED CAUSE OF TWO RAVERS' DEATHS

'Extremely Uncommon' Incident At Vancouver Event Brings Bad-Drug Warning To
Public

There may be a batch of deadly ecstasy for sale in Vancouver, B.C.'s chief
coroner warns.

Terry Smith issued the warning after two people died from apparently taking
the illegal drug at a rave early Sunday morning.

While toxicology tests still must be done on the two victims to determine
what drugs were in their systems, Smith said the deaths are alarming
because ecstasy overdoses in B.C. are rare.

"There have been quite a few documented medical and health problems from
the use of ecstasy," Smith said. "But we only have five other documented
deaths over the last three years."

There were three ecstasy overdoses in B.C. in 1998 but only one each in
1999 and 2000.

"It's extremely uncommon to have two deaths happen this quickly back to
back," Smith said.

He said the two victims appeared to suffer the symptoms of overdose --
including severe breathing difficulty -- relatively quickly after taking
the drug, which further suggests the victims may have taken contaminated pills.

Ecstasy, also known as MDMA, is a synthetic chemical with stimulant and
hallucinogenic properties -- usually giving the user a feeling of euphoria.
It was developed in 1912 as an appetite suppressant, but has become popular
in recent years as a recreational drug at all-night dance parties.

Ecstasy's biggest health risk is a dramatic increase in the user's heart
rate. Those who take too much or have heart conditions can suffer heart
failure and die.

The two victims, whose names have not been released, were attending an
all-night rave at the Pacific Coliseum dubbed "Spooky 6."

About 4,500 people paid $35 to $80 to attend the event, which ran from 10
p.m. Saturday to 7 a.m. Sunday.

The first victim, a 24-year-old woman, was sent to hospital at about 3:30
a.m. while the second, a 17-year-old male, was taken to hospital at about 5
a.m.

Laura Balance, a spokeswoman for the Pacific National Exhibition, said the
two victims were conscious and could speak when they were brought into the
first aid centre. After an assessment by the head of first aid, the two
were taken by ambulance to hospital, where they later died.

The event organizers, Swing Kids Entertainment, had a permit from the city
of Vancouver to hold the event.

Fourteen police officers attended at the promoter's expense, along with 95
security guards and eight trained first-aid staff.

Balance said security at the event was tight. "They did a full-body search
- -- a very extensive patdown -- on every single person that entered the venue."

Noting this was the fifth rave-type event held at the Pacific Coliseum, she
said the most serious medical problem in the past has been dehydration
resulting from people dancing too long.

"It's a very, very unfortunate thing that's happened. It's been quite a
shock," she said.

Several calls to the head of Swing Kids, Salim Lakhani, were not returned
Monday.

While Swing Kids had a permit to operate Saturday night's rave, the company
has been in hot water before. In May 1999, it failed to get a permit for an
all-night rave at the Plaza of Nations. At the time, police said organizers
had left their application to the last minute and did not have proper
security in place.

For the past two years, Vancouver has issued permits for all-night raves,
becoming one of the few cities in Western Canada that regulates such events.

Many cities have no formal process for regulating raves while others, such
as New Westminster and Surrey, have banned them.

Under the city's application process, which takes about six weeks, rave
organizers must provide the city with detailed fire safety, security and
first-aid plans and pay fees ranging from $200 for an event with fewer than
350 people to $800 for events with more than 2,000.

Event organizers also have to pay for policing of their event and for a
fire marshal to be on site. Alcohol is banned.

"In my opinion, it's worked fairly well up to this point," said Paul
Teichroeb, chief licence inspector for the city. "The main thrust of the
process was to try to deal with the illegal venues operating and try to
minimize the risks."

The Vancouver police department says it will review its support for legal
raves as a result of the weekend deaths.

"This thing fell within all the legal hurdles," said police spokesman
Detective Scott Driemel. "[But] whenever there's an incident at any public
function, we have to review it."

Police say very little of the ecstasy sold in Vancouver is the real thing.

Corporal Scott Rintoul of the RCMP's drug awareness section, said his
department randomly tested 300 doses of ecstasy seized in Greater Vancouver
over this past summer and found only 25 per cent of the pills were pure
ecstasy.

Another 22 per cent were a combination of ecstasy and some other drug ( PCP
or cough suppressant among others) while most of the pills being sold as
ecstasy -- 53 per cent -- contained no ecstasy at all.

Rintoul said 10 per cent of the pills tested were pure ketamine -- a
veterinary anesthetic used in animal surgery.

Mark Paul Krakus, a 19-year-old DJ, said he attended the Spooky 6 rave for
free because his twin brother was working there as a DJ.

Krakus said most regular ravers avoid events like Spooky -- known as
"massives" -- because they attract people who are not regulars on the scene.

"The people that pay to go to that -- they're chumps," Krakus said. "It's
really overpriced."

Krakus said he doesn't use drugs himself, but he believes illegal raves are
safer because participants usually know who they're buying drugs from.

But "at that kind of [large] event, a lot of people will buy off people
they don't know -- and that's not good," he said.

Ken Tupper, a grad student at Simon Fraser University's education faculty,
used to volunteer with a group called DanceSafe, which offered testing of
party drugs at all-night raves.

He said in an interview Monday the group stopped offering the service
because of pressure from Vancouver police. The group then fell apart, he said.

DanceSafe, affiliated with a U.S.-based organization of the same name,
offered basic tests to determine if a pill contained MDMA, the key
ingredient in ecstasy, said Tupper. While the test could tell if a pill
contained the drug, he said, it did not show if the pill also contained
other substances.

Now Tupper and two other volunteers are trying to resume the service with a
new group called mindbodylove. Tupper said the group met last month with
Vancouver Mayor Philip Owen and the city's drug policy coordinator, Donald
MacPherson. He said both offered positive words.

He said the group wants to offer an outreach program that would test pills,
as well as an education program for parents and teachers. The group could
buy a sophisticated drug-testing tool for $15,000 that it could take to
raves, he said.

He said opposition to such programs is short-sighted, comparing it to
opposition to putting condom machines in schools. "It's like before the
AIDS crisis, condoms in school bathrooms were a problem. After people
started dying, they weren't a problem."

There have been some signs that the rave scene in B.C. has begun to fizzle.

Summer Love, held last August near Abbotsford, drew only 6,000 people --
far below the 10,000 organizers needed to break even.

But use of ecstasy has continued to grow, Rintoul said, with ecstasy
increasingly showing up at night clubs and house parties.

"The rave scene is dying," he said. "But the drugs aren't."