CAL EXPO BANS RAVES AFTER DRUG PROBLEMS

Five people were rushed to the hospital last month after overdosing on
drugs at a rave held at Cal Expo.

Raves -- all-night dance parties that attract thousands of young dancers,
some using an energy-boosting drug called Ecstasy -- have long been held in
abandoned warehouses or secluded fields. But state-run Cal Expo has been
the site of four raves in the last two years.

As a result of the problems last month, officials said they have decided
Cal Expo has seen its last rave.

Cal Expo grossed $44,000 from the latest event held Nov. 19, according to
exposition officials. That rave, advertised as Gigabeatz, drew nearly 6,000
teenagers and young adults willing to pay $30 at the door to dance until dawn.

But paramedics and law enforcement officials also were up all night.

Sacramento Fire Department spokesman Don Braziel said his unit made six
trips to Cal Expo between midnight and 4 a.m. on Nov. 20 -- five times for
drug overdoses and once to treat a security guard who said he was attacked
by three people who stole his vehicle.

According to Braziel, two people were taken to the hospital with overdoses
of unknown drugs, a 20-year-old man had taken LSD, an 18-year-old man had
taken a combination of methamphetamine and Ecstasy, and a 22-year-old man
had overdosed on gamma hydroxy butyrate or GHB, nicknamed "liquid E,"
"liquid Ecstasy" and "grievous bodily harm" because of its possibly fatal
effects.

Cal Expo assistant general manager Brian May said there had been no
problems at the three previous raves, which brought in $25,000 each, and he
said Cal Expo performed background checks on the promoters of Gigabeatz in
an effort to avoid problems.

He said staff members and Cal Expo police officials last week decided that
Gigabeatz was the last rave the exposition center will ever hold.

"After reviewing the circumstances, Cal Expo will not have any events that
remotely resemble raves," he said.

Still, government officials and counselors who deal with drug-addicted
juveniles expressed shock that such events would be held at Cal Expo. David
Gust, director of New Directions counseling in Fair Oaks, said drug use on
state property is unacceptable.

"These things used to be underground, now they're being held at a place you
go to see the State Fair?" Gust asked. "This is the same place they hold a
sober New Year or a sober graduation. What kind of message does that send?"

Assemblyman Darryl Steinberg, D-Sacramento, who this summer argued that gun
shows should be banned from Cal Expo, said raves should be discouraged as
well.

"Obviously it's a significant concern that these types of programs have
that kind of reputation," said Steinberg, who is an ex-officio member of
Cal Expo's board of directors.

State Fair Police Chief Walter Garry said the 37-year-old guard was
attacked on the north side of the property by three young people he saw
jumping the fence. When the guard approached, Garry said, the trio turned
on the guard, knocking him to the ground.

One of the suspects climbed inside the guard's white Ford pickup, drove it
into a barrier and ran away.

Braziel said the guard suffered minor injuries, including "road rash" when
he was dragged by the vehicle. The guard could not give a good description
of the suspects and did not know if they were attending the rave, Garry
said. No arrests have been made in that assault and no arrests were made at
all that night, he said.

Garry said 10 officers and 10 security guards handled rave security on Nov.
19. He said everyone who attended was searched for drugs and at the end of
the event police had filled six bins with items that could be used to carry
drugs, including make-up cases, hair spray bottles and mouth spray.

"The dances are trouble only in the sense that there are a lot of young
people in one place," Garry said. "We're in the business of holding
concerts. We've held hundreds in the last few years, each one presenting
its own set of problems."

The overdoses come at a time when Ecstasy, long the drug of choice in
European dance clubs, is being brought into the United States in increasing
quantities from the Netherlands and other Western European countries,
according to Dean Boyd, spokesman for the U.S. Customs Service.

In 1997, customs officials seized 400,000 tablets, Boyd said. This year
that number grew to 3 million, he said, and in the first three months of
October alone customs agents seized 500,000 tablets.

Most seizures, Boyd said, occur at airports in Miami, Los Angeles, New York
and Chicago, but in one recent case agents found several thousand Ecstasy
tablets in the gas tank of a BMW being shipped from Germany.

"It's definitely a far more sophisticated effort now," Boyd said. "There's
a lot of money to be made in this."

Sacramento-area drug counselors also have seen a rise in Ecstasy use in the
last year, especially among upper-middle-class children, the group
typically involved with the so-called "designer drugs" like Ecstasy and GHB.

New Directions' Gust said that of the 65 children currently being counseled
at the center, 25 have used Ecstasy at least once in the past -- a
"dramatic increase," he said -- over previous years. Other counselors note
Ecstasy's reputation as an aphrodisiac -- two of its street names are "love
drug" or "love dove" -- has also added to its popularity among teenagers
and young adults.

Derek Bonner, who has promoted smaller raves with Sacramento-based Firesign
Productions, said he visited the Gigabeatz event that night, but never went
inside.

According to Bonner, raves are almost always peaceful although overdoses
have been known to occur. Gigabeatz was different, Bonner said, because all
sorts of people -- not just the usual rave crowd -- arrived at the event.

"When we do our events, we search very well," he said. "I don't want people
coming to my parties with drugs just for the reason that you don't know
what's in it."

Ecstasy has been tied into the dance scene for years because of the
seemingly endless energy high the drug produces. Users -- called Etards --
describe sensations of extreme relaxation or lucidness and experts say
often the only evidence that someone is on Ecstasy is dilated pupils or an
accelerated heartbeat.

Dr. Kent Olson, medical director of the San Francisco Division of the
California Poison Control System, said adverse reactions to Ecstasy, an
amphetamine derivative, are similar to those from methamphetamines -- a dry
mouth, palpitations, anxiety and a racing heartbeat. The biggest danger, he
said, is that Ecstasy can cause the user to overheat.

In an environment where rave-goers are dancing for hours, Olson said, the
effect can be severe dehydration, seizures, kidney failure, brain and liver
damage and death.

Olson said he remembers one case where a woman in her late 20s took Ecstasy
for the first time, soon became very agitated and was brought to the
hospital with a temperature of 108 degrees.

If it wasn't for aggressive treatment by emergency room physicians who
lowered her body temperature, Olson said, the woman would likely have died
or suffered brain damage.

Simon Apex, a Sacramento DJ who has performed at several Northern
California raves, said violence and drug use are likely to occur anytime
you bring thousands of people together. The six episodes early Nov. 20, he
said, are "minute" when you consider that nearly 6,000 people attended.

Apex said the rave scene in Northern California has exploded in recent
years, with some promoters flying in famous DJs from as far away as Europe
and Japan.

While the biggest Sacramento-area raves attract a few thousand dancers,
some events held in Oakland-area warehouses -- called "massives" -- have
packed in as many as 10,000 people.

"The scene is huge," Apex said. "It's like a concert-scale event."