FINALLY IT HITS BUT I DON'T FEEL OUT OF CONTROL

Toronto -- Last weekend, I took some ecstasy and danced all night and,
astoundingly, I did not die. I did not go to a rave, but to an established
nightclub in Toronto where two famous DJs from Detroit were the night's
attractions. I went with middle-class people, one in magazine publishing,
aged 26, whom I will call Mr. Bad, and one in book publishing, aged 31,
whom I will call Ms. Innocent.

Mr. Bad procured the E for us, and checked its quality by visiting a couple
of Web sites. Sites such as ecstasy.org and dancesafe.org give a list of
different pills (distinguished by their colour and by whatever symbol is
stamped on them) and ratings and purity for each one.

Some of the ratings include testimonials by people describing how many
pills they took and what kind of night they had. The ones we had were
Double Tulips (probably from Holland) and rated as "very nice" and "dancy!"
so we were confident.

We swallow the pills in an apartment about midnight (listening to Richie
Hawtin's head-nodding Decks, EFX and 909 CD). I am sleepy and willing to go
home. I have a sore neck and have just had a disagreement with my
girlfriend, who has gone home. I am not relaxed.

At the club, we are asked for photo ID (which pleases me, aged 36,
immensely) and are searched thoroughly for drugs. Ms. Innocent even has to
open up her tin of Tiger Balm.

This is a licensed club, so it has an older clientele than most raves;
still, I am astounded by how mainstream it is.

Contemporary Detroit techno is not easily accessible stuff, a pretty
minimal, hard-edged pounding. And yet here is a multiethnic crowd from all
levels of cool: crews of shirtless Asian boys, suburban blondes in high
heels and party dresses, plus the usual horde of girls in the techno
uniform (baggy pants, tight little top with spaghetti straps, shortish
hair). It could be a mall.

Although the bar is open, almost no one is drinking beer. Everybody
clutches a bottle of water. As we listen to the local DJs warm up the
crowd, no one feels even slightly stimulated.

This must be the only licensed bar in the city at 2 in the morning in which
not a single person is drunk. A skinhead with a dragon tattoo on his chest
accidentally bumps me on the dance floor and says, "Sorry."

Two hours after we dropped the pills, I am still slightly tense about my
girlfriend and my neck, and don't feel a bit altered.

"We got some dud stuff," I tell Mr. Bad. "I'm not feeling anything." He
says, "Go look at yourself in the mirror." My eyes are all pupil.

The first visiting DJ comes on and I dance with the mob amid the
sweet-smelling smoke and strobe lights. Sweaty girls on the platform wave
glow sticks in the air.

The beat is dark and deep, a crisp and clean house beat with varying
percussion patterns and a throbbing kick drum. It is impossible to
understand this music unless you have been dancing for at least an hour. It
takes a while to find yourself solidly within this driving beat. Once
there, it feels powerful -- clean and sexy at the same time.

People are walking through the crowd asking, "E? E?"

The DJ plays with us. He takes out the bass and the kick drum (the big
thump-thump drum), leaving in the snap-snap snare drum sounds, and
gradually layers spacey effects over this skeleton -- a whine, for example,
or a bloop or a swish, or a swooshing airplane sound that seems to roar
overhead and fade again -- gradually building to a climax of rhythmic
noises and jet engines.

Mr. Bad is smiling, lifting the air in front of him with his upturned palm,
willing the peak to arrive and carry us to some next plateau. As the volume
grows, the dancers sense it coming, but the DJ plays with them. He keeps
them tense. So that when the climax comes -- boom- kaboomboomboom, with
whooping crowd, hands in the air -- there is a tremendous rush.

I keep looking over at Mr. Bad and Ms. Innocent and just saying, "Yeah."
They nod. "Yeah."

I have been dancing without stop for an hour now and am saying things like
"Whooo!" when each crest comes and waving my hands in the air. There is a
sense that the throbbing music is in some way coming from the crowd, that
it is organic to this movement. I am clenching my teeth so I take a
lollipop from a passing tray (the club distributes them) and suck on it. I
slather Tiger Balm on my temples and under my nose, for reasons unclear to me.

Between about 3:30 and 4, I realize I have forgotten about my sore neck. I
realize, too, that I have never been up this late without feeling fatigue
and drunkenness. I still don't feel high or out of control; I just feel
relaxed and am enjoying the beat. This is an extremely mild drug. It
provides a calm alertness, not a caffeinated jitter.

The star DJ begins his set at 4, and the volume from the massive speaker
columns increases slightly. Boom-kaboomboomboom. The dance floor is steamy.
The hard techno drills us. I have been dancing for an hour without a sip of
water, so I take a break to refill my bottle. It occurs to me that if I
were more high, I might not do that, which might be dangerous.

But the thing about E is that taking two pills does not make you feel twice
as high or high for twice as long. Ecstasy works by stimulating your brain
to release its own natural serotonin into the gaps between brain cells (the
gaps are called synapses). The serotonin floats around, is reabsorbed and
broken down, Then the euphoria disappears.

But another pill cannot cause you to manufacture more serotonin: You have
only a certain amount and you've just used it up. You must wait until your
body re-establishes its serotonin, which can take up to two weeks. So if
you take another pill when you come down, you'll feel speedy again, but not
euphoric (for a fascinating slide show on how ecstasy works, see
dancesafe.org).

This is why some users take Prozac the day after. Prozac blocks the
reabsorption of the serotonin, so you don't come down quite so hard. Weekly
E use can cause chronically low serotonin levels, as your brain has no
chance to replenish it.

In the club, people are looking out for signs of excessive drug use. If you
take a break by bending over and bracing your hands on your knees, someone
will immediately ask you if you're okay. A girl is standing still on the
dance floor and two people ask her if she's okay.

Two guys with baggy pants and tennis hats are talking quietly in a corner,
when suddenly three massive bouncers with headsets converge on them and ask
them to empty their pockets. Everybody looks away.

I am enjoying not being high. I have a serious conversation with Ms.
Innocent about a recent work of Canadian fiction. I meet a girl who has
been dancing for 15 hours. I ask her how she keeps going. She says she
started with crystal (methamphetamine, a form of speed), then did E and
later added some K (ketamine, a relaxer that sometimes causes
hallucinations). She seems completely sober. I try to imagine what this
crowd would be like after drinking alcohol all night.

There is very little sexual aggression, or even flirtation, in this crowd.
Contrary to popular belief, E doesn't make you feel sexual. It may make you
feel a sentimental warmth toward your fellow man, but it leads to hugs more
than to kisses. In fact, E, like many other stimulants, impairs sexual
performance in men. You may want to, but you can't.

We leave at 5. The sky is blue-grey. We pass a Toronto Sun box with a
hysterical headline: "Viagra, Ecstasy Mix All The Rave." Mr. Bad says he
doesn't know anyone who has tried this.

We pass another club, with patrons leaving and a grizzled man yelling at
them, "You're all high on drugs!" They ignore him. He seems a lot crazier
than they do.