PLAN NOTHING TO RAVE ABOUT

Say what? Say yes.

This is no bad belly laugh or belated April Fool's folly. No sir. This is
real. Or as real as Silly Hall ever gets.

Yes, the city is hosting a party of 3,000 all-night dancing ravers of all
ages on the Victoria Day long weekend at the taxpayer-owned Max Bell Centre.

Raves are around-the-clock dance-a-thons where many of the dancing dynamos,
some just old enough to slurp Slurpees, are fuelled by the mind-altering
drug Ecstasy -- also known as E -- where you can enjoy the high, dance your
face off and then dehydrate, pass out and end up at the emergency room of
some hospital taking advantage of what's left of medicare.

Oh yes, it will no doubt be quite the scene at the city-owned Max Bell
Centre May 20, starting at ten at night, ending at eight the next morning.

There's a DJ from the United Kingdom who "is known to lay carnage to all
dance floors." There's another DJ who will play his "unique, funky,
hardhouse progressive style" for two whole hours.

There will be a trance tag-team with a style all their own. And yet another
turntable terror is "a Trance burner ripping it up with silky smooth
baseline charged analogues, melodic buildups, finishing off with a rippin'
array that leaves the dance floor drenched to the skin."

I have no idea what all this means, but maybe that's where the Ecstasy
comes in. And the drug will no doubt be in good supply if the city cops are
right. The cops already know well Ecstasy's hold in these parts.

"Tons of people are dealing the stuff," says acting drug unit Staff Sgt.
Nick Nyenhuis.

"Instead of just having a bag of cocaine, they also now carry Ecstasy.

"Ecstasy is a problem, a growing problem. How big is Ecstasy? It's a big
concern. There's no longer a soft drug. People have died, people have gone
to hospital.

"Ecstasy is dangerous. It can cause serious harm. Don't make light of the
fact that friends of your kid or your kid may be doing it," he says.

"Just a year ago we knew of raves and Ecstasy but we didn't have
information -- who's got it and where they're dealing. We weren't getting
that detail.

"Within the last six months, the amount of information we're getting has
gone off the chart. We're just learning how to deal with it and how to
target the traffickers."

Last month, Calgary cops made a big Ecstasy bust and in Edmonton, where two
policemen work the rave beat, eight Ecstasy-addled teens ended up in hospital.

Docs in both cities see more rave-related casualties.

Meanwhile, the contradictions abound. While Silly Hall hosts a rave, the
paper clip counters in their licensing and legal departments meet later
today to come up with ways to control raves.

Maybe not holding one at a city-owned facility would be a start. Duh.

No, this is not about ravers being evil or the music being bad or free
expression being trampled, as when the city wrongly wouldn't allow Marilyn
Manson to play Max Bell because of the alleged content of his music.

Raves were underground and secretive and very insider for a reason, back in
the happier times before they became big biz and mainstream.

Drugs, particularly the still-illegal Ecstasy, are part of the scene. Not
all of it, but part of it.

When raves are attended by every Johnny-come-lately in non-raver
neighbourhoods or in places owned by taxpayers, The Man eventually wakes up
and takes notice.

It is to be expected. Most of the time.

Of course, we still await the stirring of the Rip Van Winkles of Silly Hall.

The Dinger can be reached at (403) 250-4305 or by e-mail at rbell@sunpub.com.