One line of thinking about raves is that they are good places to spread information about safer drug use. But if they are also places where social setting encourages less safe drug use, it might well be the case that shutting them down would, on balance, reduce the aggregate damage done by the drug.
In some ways, this is a reprise of the argument about the gay bathhouses early in the AIDS epidemic. (See Randy Shilt's account in And the Band Played On.) I think it's now reasonably clear that shutting them down would have saved thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of lives. Now analogy is not identity, and it's quite possible that, even if raves are A Bad Thing, trying to shut them down by legislation will prove futile or counterproductive. But, as always, I'm troubled by the extent to which the reflexive authoritarianism of the drug warriors is matched by reflexive libertarianism on the other side, with no one very interested in the likely actual results of the policies being debated.
MDMA policy is a hard, high-stakes question: too hard, and too important, to be dealt with by the usual round of sloganeering by the warriors and their opponents.
Article comments
1 - Joanne McNeil
There will also be a protest in Washington DC on the West Lawn of the Capital Building. Details are on ROAR's (Raver Organizing Against the RAVE) website
2 - Eric Olsen
Thanks Joanne!
3 - TalkLeft
For more on the reasons to oppose the RAVE Act and on the RAVE protests, visit TalkLeft: The Politics of Crime.
http://www.talkleft.com/archives/000789.html#000789
4 - anna
one more solid coultering of the rave act:
http://archives.annatopia.com/00000211.html
i think a lot of the anti-RAVE posts forget to mention that the law will apply to -all americans- and darn near every peice of property in this country.
5 - Subversive Woofer
Part of the reason this new version of the RAVE act was able to pass is because many of these old conservatives think that this legislation will not affect their music scene. It will only cause trouble for those nasty little ravers, punks and hippies.
Well, I think if this little bit of legislation goes all the way through, then everyone hurt by this act should MAKE it affect their music scenes! In protest, people could sneak joints into opera houses, concert halls, and John Tesh concerts... then LIGHT EM UP!!! YEEHAW!~
It might help to have someone planted who can loudly complain and insist that the venue be held responsible for their actions too.
Then the venue owners for ALL concert halls will have to be tried under the new laws and that will get everyone pissed. This would be sure to get some action happening to repeal this terrible new legislation should it be fully passed instead of just upsetting a bunch of little ravers that no one will listen to.
:D
6 - Kina
the thing is... if you get any random group of ppl together.. a certain percentage of the group will probably use drugs the bigger the group the more ppl using drugs and the younger the group the higher the percentage so i would be willing to bet money some ppl going to the opera halls and john tesh concerts already are going to use drugs : a bored house wife taking non prescribed valum to deal with her husband all night or a rich couple doing a line of coke in their limo before they get there. though i dont mean to stereotype those kinds of events anyways.. i mean i love operas. but your right they need to see how broad and ridiculouse it is. maybe throw them in jail for 20 yrs cause their kid smokes some weed
7 - nima
i think this law is one of the most stupid things i have ever heard. i go to raves and i have never used drugs, i go for the music. now they are telling us to not even listen to electronic music (yeah right!!) if they want to stop people of using or buying and selling drugs, i do not think this is the right way. they need to stop it from where is it starts and find the base of it. have funn stopping raves and raves and the music mofos.