ONE SURE CURE FOR LOCAL RAVE SCENE

Raves should be illegal. It's unbelievable that anyone even debates this
point. That's the problem with this province and this country today: whiny
liberal permissiveness.

We all know exactly what raves are all about: drugs and perversion.

We all know for fact that anyone who attends raves is using drugs - usually
ecstasy. We all know that people are always overdosing on this drug. We've
all heard of the 10 people who had to be rushed to the hospital because
they overdosed at last month's Ascension 2000 rave. I attended that godless
gathering and this is what I saw:

Some girl fell off a speaker. Druggie.

Some guy had an epileptic fit after staring at the strobe lights for hours.
Druggie.

A few people passed out from dehydration. Druggies.

As for perversion, just think about it: a rave is a place where people
gather together and listen to 'music' and dance all night and sit and talk
and sniff Vicks Vap-O-Rub and hug one another. Sounds more than a bit gay,
don't you think?

Over in Ontario, they've got it right. Just over a week ago, Toronto police
chief Julian Fantino announced the results of a massive investigation into
raves that he called Operation Strike Force. I think that's a really good
name for an investigation. Sounds like a video game, maybe. Or maybe like
something I might see on my favorite show, VIP. Anyway, after five weeks,
they arrested 47 kids on drug-related charges. They also found a couple of
guns. Fantino said: "One of the more distressing items for all of us of
course is this very serious connection that exists between drugs and guns
and young people."

He's right. That is distressing. And yet no one seems to care. It's a damn
shame what has become of this country. It's a damn shame that nobody in
power is doing anything to stamp out the perverted drug culture that is the
rave scene.

Right, then. Got that? Unless you were raised in a Hutterite colony, your
irony and bullshit detector has by now gone off volubly. Clearly, and with
reason, I have overstated my case: when it comes to raves, the sweep of
popular sentiment is largely uninformed, alarmist and more than a little
silly. However, while the reactionary braying of the masses more often
serves to silence legitimate concerns about raves than to draw attention to
them, this does not mean that legitimate concerns do not exist.

The real problems with raves are they are, in fact, almost universally
poorly organized and planned, as well as essentially unregulated events.
Security is poor. Drug use is high, if not as epidemic as most media would
have us believe (I'll leave it to you to decide whether that's really a
problem). Facilities often lack appropriate ventilation and water supplies.
Because they don't sell alcohol, organizers do not have to comply with any
of the vast number of controls placed upon licensed events - controls such
as demanding that organizers prove adequate fire safety measures. Arguably
most disturbing of all, though, is that because raves are unlicensed, there
are no age restrictions save the arbitrary ones imposed by promoters.
Thirteen and 14-year-old faces were not uncommon sights at Ascension 2000.

When city council performs its review of raves (announced last week), one
should hope that it looks at these real problems and is not distracted by
the bright and flashing lights of popular anti-drug outrage. With some
simple regulations and guidelines, raves can very easily be made safer
places for ravers.