GROUP ATTEMPTS TO MAKE RAVES SAFER

But Anti-Drug Officials Less Than Enthusiastic

SAN FRANCISCO -- DanceSafe, a group that sends volunteers to raves across
the country to test pills for purity and dispense information about party
drugs, is making waves among law enforcement and anti-drug officials.

Volunteer Brooke Owyang, a 19-year-old University of California Berkeley
student, recently worked at a daytime rave in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park.

She tested a white aspirin-sized tablet for a 16-year-old and confirmed it
was Ecstasy.

Owyang delivered a brief lecture on the dangers of drugs, then watched the
teen-ager stick the pill back in his pocket and walk away. The boy took the
pill five minutes later.

Members of DanceSafe, founded last year by Emanuel Sferios, a 30-year-old
graduate student and former social worker, say they're educating young
people about drugs and their dangers more effectively than the anti-drug
rhetoric preached in schools and commercials.

Armed with information on drugs such as LSD, methamphetamines and GHB,
DanceSafe volunteers set up tables at raves and dance parties, answer
questions and test Ecstasy pills to ensure they're not poison.

The group, largely paid for by dot-com entrepreneurs, has chapters in
Portland, Ore., Vancouver, British Columbia, Orlando, Fla., Pittsburgh,
Boston, Seattle, Los Angeles and New Mexico.

Most law enforcement and public health officials don't object to the
group's efforts to distribute information on drugs. But the pill testing is
hard for some to swallow.

"They're helping people do something illegal," San Francisco Police
narcotics officer John Keane told the San Francisco Chronicle for a story
yesterday. "I don't want to see anyone die from something they took without
knowing what it was, but they are facilitating drug use."

Sferios insists the group doesn't promote drugs.

"The fact is people use drugs despite all our best efforts as a society to
prevent it," he said. "Whether we want to continue with 'Just Say No'
campaigns or not is besides the point. People need information, and they're
not getting it anywhere else."

Sferios started DanceSafe with $3,000 of his money. The group has a
downtown Oakland office, a $500,000 annual budget and four full-time
employees. They also have a lawyer, but they say that so far no member of
DanceSafe in any city has been arrested.

Besides testing drugs at parties, DanceSafe volunteers also sell at-home
pill testing kits, give out drug information cards, partially paid for by
the San Francisco Department of Public Health, that explain how certain
drugs work. They also distribute ear plugs, condoms and fruit.

The group maintains a Web site where it displays photos of Ecstasy pills
circulating throughout the country and describes what is in them.

As Ecstasy's popularity rises, dealers are flocking to sell a drug that
costs $2 to $3 per pill to make but sells for $20 to $25. They also are
manufacturing pills that cause sickness, or even death.

A University of Michigan study last year found that 8 percent of high
school seniors had tried Ecstasy, compared with about 5 percent the year
before.

In Oakland last year, eight people went from a rave to the hospital after
ingesting Ecstasy that contained Dextromethorphan, or DXM, a chemical found
in cough syrup that can inhibit sweating when taken in high doses. The
pills taken at the hot, all-night dance party sickened users.

And in Chicago, three teen-agers died this summer from pills laced with
PMA, which increases the heart rate to dangerous levels and can push the
body's temperature so high organs begin shutting down.

Owyang said the Bay Area DanceSafe chapter has found at least one fake pill
at every event it has staffed.

A DARE America official called DanceSafe "irresponsible."

"We're for zero tolerance, and they seem to be tolerating drugs," said
Frank Begueros, deputy director of the program run by police departments in
about 75 percent of American schools.

And a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration official said DanceSafe is
misleading young Americans.

"There is so much misinformation about Ecstasy -- mainly that it really
can't hurt you," said Jocelyn Barnes, spokeswoman for the DEA's San
Francisco office. "So when you have an organization talking about Ecstasy
and they've got the word 'safe' in their name, I'm not sure that's a good
message. This stuff is lethal."

Sferios says his group has never caused anyone to take drugs.

"But we have caused hundreds of people not to take a pill that was
dangerous," he said. "I think we could argue we're decreasing the amount of
people who take Ecstasy."