COPS WENT WAY OVERBOARD WITH STRIP SEARCH

Ask anyone who knows me: I'm a curmudgeon. It won't be too long now
before I'm out on the front stoop waving my cane and yelling, "Hey you
kids, get out of that Jell-o tree!" But for the love of Mike, even I
know there was something wrong with the way metro's finest
strip-searched a passel of underage ravers last weekend.

Now, part of being a curmudgeon is hating the flashing lights and
repetitive pounding music that characterizes your average rave. Part
of being a curmudgeon is needing to be asleep by about 10:30 p.m.
every night of the week. Part of being a curmudgeon is thinking that
people really shouldn't take mind-altering chemicals and stay up all
night dancing and waving glow-sticks around.

What's not cool

But hey, I understand the kids dig it. And that's cool. What's not
cool is cops strip-searching teens, looking for the massive amounts of
drugs a tipster said would be available to party-goers that night.

I mean, it's not like I've done a lot of smuggling - or even a lot of
drugs - in my time, but it seems to me that you probably don't need to
store drugs up your butt just to go to a rave. Paraguay, maybe. If you
were going to Paraguay with drugs, you'd probably consider your butt a
fine storage vessel. But to party at the Underground on a Saturday
night? Give me a break. Even a nerd like me knows there's no need for
that kind of extreme behaviour.

Presumably, you'd just stow your stash in one of the many useful and
stylish pockets adorning your great big pants.

Raver madness must stop! In a recent mini-documentary on The National
Magazine, the CBC called E "the new killer drug" of all things.
Newspapers have referred to it as "the so-called date rape drug." Huh?

The media are tripping over themselves to vilify ravers and their high
of choice without really knowing much about the scene or the drug.
Reporters interview doctors who say they see several E-related cases
every weekend in the emergency room. Funny they never mention how many
alcohol-related cases they see on a Saturday night.

Dance it off

Here's what I like about E: kids don't pop a few pills and then hop
behind the wheel of a car. Instead, they stay inside and dance it off.
Generally, people on E don't punch other people in the head and leave
them to die outside downtown after last call. Nobody ever burned a
house down from careless E-taking. You get my gist.

Now, granted the cops have a responsibility to check out drug tips. It
is their job to bust people. That's what they do. But a little
hysteria sure does go a long way. Strip-searching minors is going too
far.

Talking in the media about Ecstasy as if it is worse than heroin and
crack combined isn't exactly appropriate or responsible. It's
difficult to resist, I know, when the subject is just so damn sexy -
the pounding music, the flashing lights, the lithe teens dancing,
dancing - but taking E and staying up all night is way less dangerous
than most of the stuff my pals and I did when we were in high school.

Rave kids shouldn't be treated like Colombian drug lords. Even a
curmudgeon can see that.