FUN TICKETS, BUT TO WHERE?

It was nearly midnight on 16 September last year and Heat nightclub at Crown
casino was crowded.

Two fit young men and a woman were straining to be heard over the beat of
the music.

The two men were league footballers - not household names but well-known
enough to be minor celebrities in football-mad Victoria.

The players were long-time mates who no longer played for the same team. One
was free to go clubbing because his side hadn't made the finals. The second
was having his first serious drink in months because he had only just been
told he hadn't made the side for one of the finals to be played in two days'
time.

The disappointed player looked up and saw a legend from his club, a former
player known for his bravery on the field and his recklessness off it.

He went over for a chat, but returned looking puzzled and distracted.

He opened his hand and showed his mate a small bag filled with pills. "What
am I supposed to do with this?" he asked.

It seemed that the legend, having heard the player was dropped for the big
game, had slipped him the bag with the words: "Have a good time."

The players, knowing they were one urine sample from exposure and disgrace,
dumped the bag and left. The former player stayed to party hard, the way
he'd played in finals.

Eddie McGuire wasn't there that night, but the story does not surprise him.
The Collingwood president and television and radio presenter, an "A list"
guest around Australia, has an insider's insight into the excessive
lifestyles of some among the rich and famous.

The former party boy has become a one-man industry and he rarely goes to
nightclubs any more because he works long hours. But he knows plenty of
people who do. He is known not to be interested in drugs, so people tend to
keep them away from him, he says. But he is surprised at how many people he
knows use drugs.

"It is absolutely rife. Some people see it as glamorous or naughty. I am
amazed to see how many people who should know better end up tumbling in."

One of Mr McGuire's friends was at a private party in Prahran for a group of
business people and advertising executives where a bowl of cocaine was put
on the table. Mr McGuire's friend passed it on without comment, but his
disapproval was obvious. "He said they all acted like kids caught out
looking at dirty magazines."

So many professionals work punishing hours six days a week and are
determined to maximise their enjoyment in their leisure time with what they
call "fun tickets", he says.

Mr McGuire is amazed at the childlike faith some successful professionals
and performers put in their drug dealers. "They don't even think about what
would happen if they got a bad batch or if their dealer exposed them to the
police. They don't think that the drugs were probably made by bikies in some
garage somewhere. They just don't think."

Brian Goldsmith is another astute observer of the scene. He started the
Underground in King Street in 1977, and has been in the nightclub business
ever since. He says there are thousands more people going to clubs than ever
before and warns that the rave scene is a potential disaster - not so much
because of drugs but because of lack of safety precautions.

He said warehouse party venues would never get planning permits if they were
permanent fixtures because they are patently unsafe. "One night there will
be a fire or a riot," he predicts. "There will be a catastrophe."

Virtually all nightclubs are against drugs because they erode profits, he
says. "Why would we want them there? They (dealers) would be taking our
profits out in their back pockets."

Mr Goldsmith has seen club culture change. People used to go out to dinner
or to a pub before arriving at nightclubs already affected by alcohol. "Now
about 80 per cent arrive around midnight, straight from home," he says.

"They are healthier and fitter than their parents were. They have about
three alcoholic drinks each in a night and dance their bottoms off."

To stay viable, clubs "have to rob" patrons by selling bottles of water at
$3, he laughs.

Mr Goldsmith says he favors security staff having police folders to identify
known drug dealers so that they can be kept out of clubs. "We want our
customers to be safe and happy."