NATIONAL DEBATE ABOUT RAVES, DRUGS

This week marks a grim anniversary--it was two years ago Wednesday
that five young people died when their car plunged off the Angeles
Crest Highway as they drove home from a rave in the San Gabriel
Mountains. The tragedy intensified the spotlight on the rave scene and
its dangers, but, really, that spotlight has rarely dimmed much in
recent years as defenders of the growing scene fend off accusations
that it's more about drug use than music. "It is, quite honestly,
exhausting that people do not recognize the music here," was how Paul
Oakenfold, a superstar DJ, put it in an interview with The Times last
year. "Drugs are not the defining part of all this."

Federal prosecutors and drug agents disagree, and they've gone to war
on raves, with New Orleans as their battleground of choice. First,
prosecutors sought to use federal "crack-house" laws to go after rave
promoters and venue owners with a case that, in essence, accused them
of promoting drug sales and use in a way comparable to a landlord who
knowingly rents a house to drug dealers. The government's case has met
with several setbacks, including one last week: A federal judge ruled
that a plea deal offered by prosecutors could not force promoters to
ban glow sticks, surgical masks, pacifiers and vapor rub--some of the
colorful totems of the rave scene that government attorneys had tried
to label as drug paraphernalia. Graham Boyd, director of the ACLU's
Drug Policy Litigation Project, says the entire battle is wrongheaded.
"If the police want to enforce drug laws, then they should go after
drug dealers," he said.

The modern-day battle of New Orleans is being closely watched here,
but for now raves in Southern California continue to follow a steady
beat--one of the biggest ever, the eighth annual Nocturnal Wonderland,
will bring 80 acts to Lake Havasu this Saturday.