"Rave Drugs / Club Drugs" and The Government / Media:
Raves are not about drugs and drugs are not about raves.
Much ballyhoo has been written about drugs and raves, ‘Rave Drugs’, and ‘Club Drugs’ AT raves. Many in the media have written Rave articles and never set foot inside such an event, relying strictly upon hearsay. The Calgary Sun
http://www.calgarysun.com/ has offered numerous such articles -- often citing broad and incredibly inaccurate generalizations of rave/electronica style events. Rick Bell of The Calgary Sun wrote this terrible article on April ??, 2000 [place link here] without attending such an event. His following article Sun April 20, 2001 written on April 20, 2000 belittled Ravers while he tried to cover his tracks from the raving community’s outrage at his ignorant and extremely misleading first article.Rick Bell authored numerous articles concerning raves, ravers, etc, but they suddenly stopped after the Calgary Sun received a rumored 300 – 500 complaints concerning his offensive articles.
Another equally ignorant article by The Sun’s Michelle Mark on April 2, 2001 stated a 20 year old man suffered an Ecstacy overdose at a Max Bell Arena rave. In fact the man had drunk heavily and had not taken any ecstasy, but a drug known as ‘GHB’ or ‘liquid ecstasy’. Liquid Ecstasy and Ecstasy not even being closely related. As a side note, most Ravers consider anyone taking GHB to be at least one apple short of a basket. Needless to say, The Calgary Sun’s byline was: Ecstasy user resuscitated by EMS staff. Here is the article
Calgary Sun Apr 2, 2001 .
Even dumber was the media’s presentation of a ‘Rave Stabbing’ at Firepark Sports Plex on May 27, 2000. The stabbing happened after the Rave had ended in the parking lot when a Caucasian and Asian male entered into a dispute. The media has clearly done a real number on rave style events all in the efforts of sensationalism (aka trying to sell more news).
Government Misinformation:
If you really want to see some governmental idiocy and misinformation at work, clink on:
Note the capricious use of such terms as ‘Rave Drugs’ / ‘Club Drugs’. On the www.ravefacts.com site, it originally debuted with a picture of a needle beside the Rave Drugs menu option. It was changed to capsules when a number of people complained at the obvious scare tactic. There is no such thing as a ‘Rave Drug’. For example, Ecstasy was only made illegal in 1985, and has been around since 1912 when Merck Pharmaceuticals first synthesized it. Ecstasy has even been used on rape victims to help them feel empathy once again. Many kids say it’s much easier to purchase Ecstasy at school than it is at a Rave, does that make it a ‘School Drug’?
Parents:
Much of the Government ‘rave’ propaganda is geared toward scaring the hell out of you. The Police don’t like raves for the simple fact it’s dark and they can’t see into a crowd of 500 or 1000 people. It’s all about control (and police are all about control). There are numerous close minded people afraid of what the rave movement is because they just haven’t been to one and just don’t understand the sense of community that attendees take away from the event. Today’s society encourages sitting behind a computer without any live human contact, but people need to be with other people – as they have for eons will hopefully continue too.
Young people have to experiment, some will try smoking, alcohol, mushrooms, pot, etc., but they all have the choice and it is up to parents to give them the tools and information their kids need to make these decisions. Some parents drop their kids off at a rave at 9:30 PM and pick their kids up at 2 or 3 AM. Some parents even use it as reward for good marks -- those are the smart parents. If you allow your kids to be kids, and you are comfortable with that, your kids will be comfortable and not even feel under pressure to rebel against you or to try mind altering drugs in the first place.
We don’t promote drug use at all, but if you insist upon doing it, please know exactly what you are doing to yourself.
Summary:
The media have somewhat backed off bashing raves nowadays. Rave enthusiasts are everywhere, including the local print/television and radio media. Many reporters never expected such a backlash after their stories were published. The editors seem to be much more cautious now about publishing anything rave related unless it is done fairly and accurately. Regrettably, this was not so a year ago. Good journalism was an oxymoron.
The long and short of it is take everything you hear in the media with a grain of salt. Raves are not about drugs and drugs are not about raves.