OUT IN THE OPEN: RAVES AND ECSTASY

LOS ANGELES-Twenty years after their heyday as an underground
phenomenon, the drug-fueled dance parties known as raves are making a
comeback as massive, commercial events.

But a recent wave of ecstasy-related deaths and hospitalizations tied
to such events have left some officials skeptical about their makeover.

Last week, a 15-year-old girl died of apparent drug-related causes
following an enormous rave held at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum,
prompting a temporary moratorium on such gatherings at the
municipally owned venue.

An estimated 180,000 people, many of them teenagers, attended the
two-day party, known as the Electric Daisy Carnival.

The joint state, county and city commission that oversees the
Coliseum is to meet July 16 to consider extending the moratorium or
imposing other limitations. Officials in the San Francisco Bay Area
are also mulling similar steps in the wake of their own rave-related deaths.

Unlike the original raves in the late 1980s and early '90s, which
were often staged without permits in hard-to-find patches of desert
or abandoned industrial warehouses, today's version has gone
aboveground. Events have been held at other city buildings, at the
Cow Palace in Daly City, Calif., near San Francisco, and at New York
City's Randall's Island. Promoters charge as much as $85 a day
admission, set age restrictions and impose relatively early closing times.

The soundtrack for the events remains the throbbing electronic dance
music known as electronica, spun by DJs.

Another thing that hasn't changed: The drug of choice for many
attendees is still ecstasy, an illegal stimulant/hallucinogen also
known as MDMA that is often cut with other substances.

Taken as a pill or powder, the drug, whose full chemical name is
3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine, can induce euphoria and doesn't
typically cause the kind of traumatic overdose symptoms associated
with drugs such as heroin. But ecstasy can cause
dehydration-potentially a serious health problem for people dancing
all night in hot, cramped conditions.

Doctors say many ecstasy-users end up in emergency rooms because they
try to combat dehydration by drinking too much water, causing water
intoxication-which can lead to seizure and coma.

The promoters of today's biggest such events often seek to downplay
the ecstasy connection and ban paraphernalia typically associated
with the drug. Banned items have included pacifiers, used by rave
goers on the drug to minimize the effect of grinding their teeth, and
Vicks VapoRub, believed to enhance the effects of the high.

In fact, promoters typically insist that their massive dance parties
aren't raves. Instead, they bill the affairs as "electronic-music
festivals" and market them as safe events.

Event promoters, such as Insomniac Events and HARD, both based in
L.A., say they work with city officials to ensure safety, buying
permits and hiring private security, undercover narcotics officers
and other law enforcement.

Gary Richards, president of HARD, who says his events aren't raves,
puts attendance at the HARD Summer in Los Angeles event at 16,000
last year, up from 6,000 in 2008.

"We're trying to create a party element but encourage people to be
responsible," Mr. Richards said. He added: "You don't have to be on
drugs...to enjoy electronic music."

But city officials aren't buying it. "A rave by any other name is
still a rave," said Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky,
who requested the moratorium at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and
Sports Arena. "It's the atmosphere and the culture of the event, and
the resultant behavior that is the concern-not what we call it."

Although last weekend's Electric Daisy rave was supposed to have a
minimum age requirement of 16, attendees say it wasn't enforced. One
hundred fourteen attendees were also hospitalized, and 118 were
arrested, largely for drug possession, according to local
authorities. Some say the rave was chaotic and oversold, with
insufficient security.

"They don't really enforce the age limit because if they were to
check everybody's ID, the line would take forever," said Alex Pastor,
a 21-year-old attendee of the Electric Daisy rave.

Videos circulating on YouTube show crowds of scantily-clad people
crashing through gates to stampede into the event, trampling over
other attendees, security and police officials.

Pasquale Rotella, owner of Insomniac Events, the promotion company in
charge of the Electric Daisy Carnival, didn't respond to requests for comment.

The rave scene waned in the mid and late '90s amid changes in musical
tastes and other cultural shifts. The 2003 Illicit Drug
Anti-Proliferation Act further dampened enthusiasm for hosting raves
by increasing the liability of anyone involved with organizing events
whose purpose included the distribution of drugs.

But in recent years electronic dance music has gone mainstream in the
U.S., with popular artists such as Kanye West and the Black Eyed Peas
embracing the sound in hit songs. That, in turn, has helped fuel a
resurgence in the massive dance parties that feature the music.

Last year, the French electronic-music DJ David Guetta released his
album "One Love," which has sold about two-million copies and
featured mainstream hitmakers such as the Black Eyed Peas and Akon.

"I think what happened is the scene was very underground and then a
few people like me had crossover hits that were being played on the
radio, and then it started to touch a different audience," said Mr.
Guetta in an interview. Mr. Guetta says he has a whole new fan base
in "popular-music fans."

Promoters took advantage of the renewed interest, booking more and
bigger DJs. Thousands of rave-goers donning colorful, homemade bead
bracelets started popping up on the streets again to attend the events.

As electronic music has started to influence mainstream pop genres
such as hip-hop, interest in the U.S. has surged. Booking fees in the
domestic electronic-music market are expected to hit about $180
million this year, according to Joel Zimmerman, managing director of
William Morris Electronic, a large electronic-music booking agency.
That's up from $100 million in 2008. Also, he expects that the
country will go from representing 20% of the global booking market
for electronic artists in 2008 to 35% this year.

"It's just at its fever pitch-it's beyond anybody's wildest dreams,
that it could be this big," said Mr. Richards of HARD.

At the same time, medical complications related to ecstasy have soared.

Since 2005, seven-and-a-half times more Los Angeles County residents
using drug-treatment facilities are listing MDMA as their primary
drug of choice, according to a June report from the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention.

The report also cited findings from the Drug Abuse Warning Network
that MDMA-related emergency-room hospital visits rose nationally
almost 75% from the 2004-08 period. In contrast, visits related to
other drugs-including heroin, amphetamines and
methamphetamines-decreased markedly over the same period.

Marc Futernick, medical director of emergency services at California
Hospital Medical Center in L.A., said the hospital has averaged about
one death a rave in the past few years. Patients who arrive from
raves come in with a mixture of MDMA and amphetamines in their
system, he said, because ecstasy pills are often cut with multiple
substances. This has led to comas, seizures and high blood pressure
in children as young as 13.

When raves happen, he added, "it's the only night we see this level
of overdose."