RAVE DRUG TESTERS SAY THEY'LL DEFY RCMP

Local organizers for the U.S.-based group Dancesafe will continue to take
their Ecstasy-testing kits to city raves, despite an RCMP threat they'll be
busted for possession or trafficking of drugs if they do.

The Mounties, the lead agency dealing with raves in the Lower Mainland,
recently told Dancesafe they would no longer tolerate drug testing at raves
because it exposes the promoters to legal action if someone dies after
taking a tested pill.

"It's zero tolerance to testing drugs at the raves," said Scott Rintoul,
the RCMP's Vancouver drug awareness officer. "It's an offence and they
will be charged with possession or trafficking."

Nadia Van der Heyden, spokeswoman for Dancesafe Vancouver, said the group
was testing at raves until last summer, when security guards started
confiscating the kits. "Security were saying the kits are a weapon. That's
absolutely ridiculous but their argument is that it contains sulphuric acid
so it could be thrown on someone."

Four kits were confiscated at a rave in Richmond last month, said Van der
Heyden, adding 100 kits are in Seattle waiting to be collected by the group.

The importance of testing pills and capsules surfaced recently when two
Toronto teens died after taking white powder in a capsule they believed to
be Ecstasy. The drug was actually PMA, a cheaper but potentially lethal
Ecstasy substitute.

Testers add a drop of sulphuric acid onto a scraping from a tablet. If the
resulting mix is black, it means the pill contains Ecstasy. If the pill
contains speed and Ecstasy, it goes orange then black. No result is
considered a bad sign, since a PMA pill will not react to the test.

Results from testing at the Dreamfields rave in Squamish last July found
all but three of the 80 pills tested contained Ecstasy.

Van der Heyden said two of the three people whose pills showed no result
took them anyway and ended up getting sick.

"We asked where the Ecstasy was bought from and eventually we tracked down
the dealer that sold the bad pills and told him what he was doing. What we
are about is harm reduction and education."

Although he admits drugs get into raves despite security checks, Rintoul
dismissed the need for on-site testing, saying the only way to accurately
test tablets is in a laboratory.

"We have bonded certified security checking everyone that comes into the
room, plus working the floors. We have law enforcement officers doing all
these things to keep drugs out and yet you have this group that want to
test drugs inside," he said.

But Donald MacPherson, the city's drug policy coordinator, said the
situation is similar to that of injection drug users: police arrest them,
but don't oppose free needle exchanges. The recently released Framework For
Action to fight the Downtown Eastside's drug problem, which endorses harm
reduction, states the city will "develop official policy to support efforts
to test drugs for content and purity at rave parties."

"There are some contradictions with searching for drugs on the outside and
testing inside, but with harm reduction you have to work with
contradictions," said MacPherson, who wants city police included in
another meeting between RCMP and Dancesafe.

Rave organizer Richard Gablehouse said a rave on First Nations land in
Chilliwack last August attracted 12,000 people but saw no fights or
overdoses. "Two years ago an adult male overdosed at a rave near the UBC
and it was front page news," Gablehouse said. "Three nights later at a
Metallica concert there were 11 overdoses and not a single report about it.
We are in a drug society and the only way to stop it is through education.
That's what Dancesafe do and they are the only ones doing it."

Gablehouse supports drug testing on site but will not go against RCMP
direction.

"I want them to test drugs but I'll go by what the police say."

Van der Heyden said Dancesafe will continue to try and get into raves to
test drugs.

"We are setting up a legal fund if we need it," she said.