ALL THE RAVE IN CHINA

Police Are Struggling To Control Ecstasy, The Fast-Spreading Club Drug

Beijing -- The rave was at fever pitch at Beijing's swank Club Vogue.
The dance floor was packed with a sweaty mix of foreign and local
hipsters tuned in to the techno beats.

Some were wagging their heads back and forth like human metronomes --
a sign that they had probably taken the drug Ecstasy. Known in the
mainland as "head-shaking drug," or yaotou wan, Ecstasy has soared in
popularity as the party drug of choice since it first filtered in from
Hong Kong three years ago through habitues of the rave lifestyle.

Suddenly, the music stopped and drama intruded.

Police with guns drawn rushed onto the dance floor, throwing the
foreigners out and forcing the Chinese patrons to wait for hours while
they took urine samples, said Lisa Liu, the 30-year-old co-owner of
Club Vogue. Those who tested positive either had to shell out fines of
up to $725 or face being sent to a drug addiction center or a mental
institution, revelers said.

Ecstasy has spread throughout China like no other drug before it, drug
enforcement officials say. While heroin and amphetamines remain the
most popular, Ecstasy's explosive growth and broad appeal has caught
Chinese officials off guard. The drug's rapid ascendance demonstrates
how social norms are breaking down as a generation of youth reared on
promises of a workers' paradise face a complicated reality of
unemployment, broken homes and corruption.

Said Geremie Barme, a noted observer of Chinese culture and professor at
the Australian National University: "Ecstasy is a
perfect drug of leisure and escape for a claustrophobic generation that
wants to feel it is up there with international youth
decadence, at the same time convincing itself that it is having some
profound experience that equates dehydration and sexual
oneness with anti-establishment protest."

In short, the Party matters less than partying.

Chinese University of Hong Kong sociologist Chan Hoi-Man notes a
concurrent retreat of politics from the private lives of younger Chinese.

"The decline of political authority in a post-revolutionary country
and, on the other hand, the globalization of culture, means that more
and more youths are looking to Western countries for models and
inspiration," Chan said.

Government officials are hard put to pin down the number of Ecstasy
users, though the size of drug hauls would indicate that hundreds of
thousands are taking the pills. While mostly focused in the larger
cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, it has begun to crop up
in second-tier cities as well, police say.

Of course, like other Western imports, Ecstasy has taken on certain
Chinese characteristics. Like the head shaking, a feature unique to
the mainland that there seems no logical explanation for.

Sheng Zhimin, a young movie director, mused: "There is a spiritual
emptiness in China. People have money. Now they need something else.
That's why something like the Falun Gong is so popular."

References to the outlawed spiritual sect, which the government has
unsuccessfully tried to crush, come up often in conversations about
Ecstasy. The reason? Both phenomenons pose a threat to the regime.

"Falun Gong is a cult religion," said a 23-year-old artist, who asked
not to be named. "Ecstasy is a cult drug."

The Ecstasy boom may signal the first dawn of an irreverent,
drug-inspired counterculture for a new century. A popular underground
song played at raves by DJs skewers the most sacred of Communist
China's symbols in a way that would have been unimaginable a few years
ago.

Taking its cue from an old Cultural Revolution era ditty, the song
goes: "No Communist Party, no New China. No New China, no sex. Without
sex, how can I survive?"

The song proceeds to mock the saint-like icon Lei Feng, a soldier
whose unending love for Chairman Mao and selfless contributions to
communism have been held up as a model to millions of students: "Learn
from Lei Feng, learn from a good model. If Lei Feng takes Ecstasy,
there is no difference between him and me."

The current crop of party leaders isn't immune, either. "If a girl
doesn't whore herself, it will sadden (President) Jiang Zemin. If a
girl doesn't want to be a hooker, it will sadden (Prime Minister) Zhu
Rongji."

At between $10 and $20 a pill, Ecstasy is relatively affordable to
middle class Chinese. So it was just a matter of time before the
regime mounted its first national crackdown on Ecstasy use -- a
three-month campaign known as Spring Thunder that ended April 1.

In the southern province of Guangzhou, police arrested 1,072 suspects
after investigating clubs, karaoke parlors and bars where the drug is
common, state media reported. Hauls of Ecstasy and methamphetamines
have increased 10-fold in the past three years, Guangzhou police say.

Nationwide, seizures of the two "party drugs" reached more than 20
tons last year, said Zheng Jiwang, director of the National Institute
on Drug Dependence, a leading researcher on addiction in China, and a
professor of pharmacology at Beijing University.

"Two to three months after Ecstasy appeared in the south it was
already in the north," said Zheng.

Mainland authorities say that all the Ecstasy sold here is imported
from abroad -- most notably the Netherlands, the center for global
production -- and smuggled through Hong Kong. But sources with ties to
Chinese drug enforcement officials say local criminal gangs have set
up mobile labs crammed in the back of trucks in southern China.

Some gangs are beginning to export. A recent bust in Shenzhen netted
100, 000 pills bound for Alaska, one source says. Many of the
precursor chemicals for both Ecstasy and methamphetamines are produced
legally in China, so obtaining them is not hard.

Hoping to capitalize on the popularity of raves, Wahaha, a leading
Hangzhou-based beverage manufacturer, even has a line of bottled
water called ReiwuPaidui, the Mandarin word for rave party.

While water bottles are an essential accessory to stave off
potentially fatal dehydration, a risk when taking Ecstasy, company
officials deny they are targeting pill-poppers.

In the meantime, users rave on for whatever private reasons they may
have.

Ma Zhishun, 23, ran away from his home in the northern industrial town
of Shenyang 10 years ago when his family fell apart during a painful
divorce. He hasn't spoken to his parents since.

Even though he rose from a street-side fruit vendor to exporting shoes
to Russia, he still has to confront depression.

During a quiet moment at Beijing's Hot Spot Disco, where scantily clad
women dance in cages, he explains the drug's appeal.

"Ecstasy makes me happy," he said. "It helps me forget my problems."