SCARING OUR KIDS STRAIGHT

File this under dangerous information. I'm writing about drugs and
raves and our homegrown "chemical generation" (Irvine Welsh of
Trainspotting fame coined the term for the Brit ravers he writes about.)

I know just typing the words "drugs" and "raves" in the same sentence
will net me a slew of abusive e-mail advising me that I don't know how
to write -- or think. They'll suggest I should seriously consider
getting a life and LEAVING THE KIDS ALONE.

But I can't.

It's not that I think Tom Jakobek's flat-footed hang 'em high approach
to stamping out raves is feasible or fair. In fact, such hyperbolic
language ("A rave is a drug haven. It has to be stopped.") is likely
to backfire bigtime.

Youth culture is all about belonging. Every parent knows this. Our
formerly loving kids turn into teenagers who only vaguely remember who
we are, while they bond with startling intimacy and loyalty with
friends whose charms are completely incapable of detection by the
untutored observer.

A wise psychologist once told me that this was the real business of
life for the 15- to 24-year-olds. They had two main tasks -- to
separate from the family and to form intimate relationships "on the
outside."

But do they have to do it at raves? Well, no, lots don't, but it's
really rather handy that raves are demonized by politicians and the
media. The hullabaloo allows the kids to feel persecuted and
misunderstood and drives them into each other's arms faster and more
completely.

The other extremely handy thing is Ecstasy, the drug of choice for
raves. It was publicly rehabilitated in 1982 (after being patented by
Germany's Merck Co. in 1912 as a diet pill) by American
psychopharmacologist Alexander Shulgin. In medical conferences, he
described it as the "empathy drug" and urged its use in therapy. It
enjoyed a brief vogue in marital therapy where the sense of
well-being, self-esteem and euphoric acceptance led to relationship
breakthroughs, it's supporters claimed. These new insights lasted long
after the drug's effects had worn off, therapists said.

Soon mainstream publications like Newsweek were announcing "This is
the drug LSD was supposed to be."

However, just as with the truth-seekers and LSD, Adam, as it was then
called, was soon a party drug, the "yuppie love drug," in fact. There
were reports you could buy it with your credit card over the counter
in some U.S. bars. And in 1985 the DEA stepped in and made it illegal.
(This happened in Canada nine years before.)

Illegal and tantalizing, it was soon a highlight of the gay clubs in
New York. In Europe, it hit the dance party scene in Ibiza, fuelled
the now-famous "Summer of Love" in 1988 and drove parents and
politicians mad. In Britain in '94 they brought in a draconian
Criminal Justice Act outlawing big parties where the music has a
"repetitive beat." (I'm not kidding.) Not surprisingly the kids raved
on. And on. But now there are hints the trend might be slowing in
Britain -- although the drug czar has estimated that as many as 1
million Brits may be occasional users.

Certainly in Canada the number is on the way up. In '96 only 3% of our
school kids reported having tried it. But last week in Chilliwack,
B.C., police were astounded when they busted an illegal crime lab.
They found enough ingredients to make 2 million individual doses in
that one basement in a home in a prestige neighbourhood. We've had
similar big busts here and in Vancouver since September.

Youth culture is tribal, say the trendspotting experts. Kids dress,
talk, and zone out according to the dictates of the group. In Canada,
raving has just hit critical-mass numbers -- the moment when it moves
from the underground kids on the margin to the above-ground kids
looking for a fashion statement -- and a place to hang their
collective hat.

And that's the reason it's dangerous and why we should be very careful
how we react. The raves we've seen in the past few months are three
or four times as big as they were a couple of years ago.

And the ravers are different too. Ask anybody who's been in the scene
for a long time and they'll talk about how the little kids are now
coming for drugs, not music.

Of the three deaths we've had since July, two appear to have been due
to inexperienced kids experimenting and another because friends
misread the signs of distress. So it's very important how we handle
this new problem. The research on the negative effects of Ecstasy is
so far slim but scary. We've seen fatal overheating, heart and kidney
failure and strokes. But overreaction and misinformation won't scare
these kids straight. They need honest information and so do we.