ATTACK DRUGS, NOT DANCING, CHOW SAYS

Councillor Warns Against Banning Raves

Law-abiding ravers should not be penalized for illegal drug use by
some of their counterparts, an inquest has been told.

"Those who do drugs should be punished, but a person who dances at
raves should not be punished for dancing," Councillor Olivia Chow
(Downtown) testified Friday at the inquest into the death of Allen
Ho.

"Dancing and ecstasy are two separate issues," said Chow, the city's
designated youth advocate. She said a Toronto-wide ban on raves would
drive the electronic dance scene underground and pose a bigger risk
for party-goers.

Ho, a Ryerson student, died two weeks short of his 21st birthday after
ingesting the drug ecstasy at a rave in the city's west end on Oct. 9,
1999.

Chow said the city's protocol with rave organizers, enforced since
December, is effective in protecting the health and safety of party
patrons.

"The protocol needs to be honoured. If a rave doesn't have any
paid-duty police officers or ambulance present, that's an underground
rave and officers can come in and shut the rave down," she said.

"The key to eliminate illegal drugs is to empower young people, to
have their peers say 'It's not cool to have drugs and don't do it,' "
through public education, she said.

But Rusty Beauchesne, lawyer for Toronto police Chief Julian Fantino,
said expert witnesses had testified earlier that ecstasy consumption
is a part of rave culture. Up to 80 per cent of ravers are believed to
have used the hallucinogenic drug, he said.

Chow said the issue around Ho's death is drug abuse, not
raves.

"Ho should have been there dancing and shouldn't have used drugs. He
made a mistake and we are here to learn from that mistake," she said.

When asked by Paul McDermott, lawyer for Coroner Dr. Barry McLellan,
how a self-regulatory protocol can give authorities the power to crack
down on illegal raves, Chow said current legislation and city bylaws
can be enforced. "We can make the lives of (non-abiding rave
organizers) miserable by hounding them with the fire code and (other
regulations). We have many other ways to shut them down," said Chow.