Rave Dale. Original cartoon by Ho.
Back in the “Second Summer of Love” of 1988, a hypnotic, trancelike new sound, inspired by the motorik rhythms of ‘ 70s Krautrock pioneers like Kraftwerk, had begun to take hold of youth culture in the UK.
DJs had started playing records coming out of both the Detroit Techno and Chicago Acid House clubs in America and it wasn’t long before British clubs were holding House Music nights, combining the old school heavy pounding beats of the original acid and techno tracks with the smoother, more melodic dance music that was becoming popular in Europe.
Add to that the resurgence of interest in “new age” psychedelia and recreational drugs at the trippier end of the spectrum and the Rave Revolution had arrived.
Some of these people may be “chemically assisted”
By the time the initial “scene” reached it’s sell-by date in the mid-nineties, even indie geek stalwarts Pulp were casting a laconic eye over proceedings, with this spot-on analysis of the stagnating subculture.
But just as the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act didn’t eradicate the House Music movement by banning privately organised outdoor raves, the rise in use of newly popular drugs such as ecstasy, and old favourites like speed and acid, wouldn’t be stopped by the introduction of draconian new anti-drug laws.
Twenty years ago you could be reasonably sure that if you bought an ecstasy pill at a rave, then it probably had a substantial percentage of E and less in the way of X, Y and Z.
That is to say, the majority of the active ingredient was likely to be (deep breath) 3-4 methylenedioxymethamphetamine or, mercifully, MDMA for short, and if you were unlucky you might get a side order of baby laxative or baking powder.
But nowadays, due partly to the demonisation of all drugs by some elements in government and the police, partly to lack of education and partly to the greed of unscrupulous criminal gangs, the purity and safety of many recreational drugs is being compromised.
So much so that in Vienna, Austria, the Trans European Drug Information Project has set up CheckIt, a free drug analysis service for drug users who want to be sure they’re taking what they think they bought, so to speak.
Indeed, their findings have been somewhat startling.
From over 700 samples of cocaine tested, nearly 85% was shown to have been adulterated by up to half.
Ecstacy tablets frequently show high levels of Levamisole, a farm animal worming agent, which has also been found in cocaine in the US, causing some users’ flesh to rot.
Other adulterants include Phenacetin, an analgesic with dangerous side-effects and PMA or “pink ecstasy” which has been linked to at least 20 deaths in the UK alone.
Such is the concern for the welfare of unsuspecting clubbers, that the UK now has Dancesafe, a similar organisation to CheckIt who, along with sites like ecstasydata and pillreports, (none of whom seem to have any truck with the space bar) provide user-friendly reviews, analysis and “consumer feedback” on the various street drugs available in the area.
And while programmes like needle exchanges have been around for some years, it has only been recently that the existence of DIY drug testing kits has become necessary.
Even so called “legal highs”, which were once confined to relatively harmless herbal recreational trips like Space Cadets (which I readily admit to having taken many years ago, and very nice they were too) have been replaced by the frankly terrifying Meow Meow (Mephedrone), the fiercely addictive African Khat and things that are so dodgy they have to be sold as “Plant fertilizer. Not fit for human consumption”
This has once again led to calls for stricter laws to to ban all legal highs, to prevent manufacturers making minute alterations to recipes in order to circumvent the more vague current legislation.
At the same time, a prominent senior police chief has called for “an end to the war on drugs”, citing the rise of criminal gangs and proven effectiveness of addiction rehabilitation clinics to treat drug users.
Unfortunately, well meaning as this may be, it doesn’t deal with the issue of criminalising large numbers of perfectly normal young people who want to go out and have a good time with the intoxicant of their choice, without risking getting poisoned for their trouble.
I don’t think there’s any doubt that people will always take mind-altering substances, irrespective of laws prohibiting them from doing so.
The question is, will we ever come up with a way for society to accept that fact and deal with it accordingly, instead of forcing the issue back underground where the only people who benefit are those who have the least interest in the culture that spawned them?