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.