Well this is the one thing most people think of when they hear the word rave. 'Oh you mean those rave parties where everyone does ecstasy pills'. Drugs are not what raves are about. Not everyone is on drugs at a party, like some of my ignorant friends have told me. "I heard at raves, like 90% of the people are on ecstasy". Sorry folks, thats BS. I myself party sober (most of the time) and have plenty of friends that are with me. No one at a rave is going to cram drugs down your throat. If people want to do drugs, thats their personal choice and nothing I'm going to say to them will change their mind. So if you're afraid of your kid/relative/friend/whatever going to a rave and doing drugs, explain the cons of drugs to them. DO NOT just say N-0 you can't go to raves. This won't help at all, and in fact probably hurts. I see plenty of little 14 year old kids raving 'cause they think its 'bad'...Once informed of the situation hopefully you'll trust that person to make the right decision.
With that said, drugs are at raves! Never have I had such easy access to so many exotic types of drugs. For those who don't think this, where can I get some rose coloured glasses? Wake up and take them off people, drugs are there. Depending on the party, I wouldn't be offered drugs at all or at one party I was offered drugs/if I had drugs for sale around every 15 minutes(I timed it!). Note: the reason I was asked so much because apparently at that party there was a drug dealer that night who was supposed to be tall and wearing a blue baseball cap. As anyone who knows me would tell you, that description fits me perfectly. But getting offered drugs at parties has definitely been on the increase of late, mainly due to all the media attention raves have been getting lately. Media: what you're doing is not helping at all! All you're doing is perpetuating the image that raves are about drugs. If you keep doing this, one day it will be about drugs. Now drug dealers and little, uninformed kids come to a party trying to find this image you perpetuate. The best way to deal with this shit is to be informed...know whats out there, what drug dealers do and of course the effects of the drugs.
I will try to give a brief synopsis of the more popular drugs to be found at raves. Again I am no expert and I haven't even tried 90% of these drugs...If you do want expert advice I heartily recommend these sites...
1)Marijuana Weed, pot, dope, hash whatever you want to call it you'll always find the sticky green at raves. There is usually a definite weed smell at raves (I haven't found one yet that hasn't reeked of it). It was the first thing my Mom noticed when she want to a party (yeah thats right my Mom went to a rave!). Of course, you will notice at around 4:20am there is always a large gathering (aka 90% of the party) huddled somewhere to do the ceremonius weed smokin'...A lot of people use marijuana to 'complement' the harder drugs they've done that night.
2)Magic Mushrooms I hate that frickin' name for them. I prefer 'shrooms or mush. Shrooms contain basically the same psyco-active ingredients of LSD except at one hunderth of the 'power'. 'Shrooms are hallucinagens, so therefore you hallucinate when on them. Side effects of high dosages (high dosage is variant-for me anything over 3-4 grams is a high dosage-for some it can be as little as one gram) can include cold, clamy skin, crash 'n burn (after the high is gone you have no energy left) and vomiting. WARNING: The government of Canada recently did a test with some street 'shrooms they picked up. Of the 119 grams analyzed, 23 of them were actually mushrooms. The rest were all regular mushrooms, but had PCP or LSD 'sprinkled' on them. This has happened to me and my friends before and needless to say it really frickin' sucks...
3)Ecstasy(MDMA) The so called 'rave' drug (which is bs nowadays because more and more E is hitting the streets). Commonly referred to as E...E makes you feel very happy about yourself and your surroundings. Gone are those self doubts, worries or negative feelings you once had. Now they're replaced with warm, fuzzy feelings, and an abundance of positive energy. All of this of course depends on what you get your E laced with...Most E(or MDMA in its pure form) is not pure. Often its laced with other drugs such as speed, acid, PCP, heroine etc. Apparently E is supposed to make you more sensitive to pleasure/pain (like when you get a massage its supposed to feel a million times better). Myself personally, I have never experienced this. Side affects include hurting of the spine for a couple of days afterwards, crash and burn ('cept a million times worse than shrooms-we are talking ZERO energy left) and a general lack of initiative for a couple days afterwards as well. It's really hard to confine E to one 'trip' or sideaffects 'cause there are so many different kinds out there. What I've said above is all personal stuff I've experienced whilst on it. If you think my comments are ignorant....well you weren't there now were you? =P
4)Gibb/Crystal Meth Ewww bad, dirty, gross whatever you want to call it. This drug is frickin' DIRTY with a capital D. Made by usually taking lots of household chemicals and mixing them in the drug dealers bathtub. Basically its a poison that gives you LOTS of energy and can get you extremely high...The low point of my rave 'career' was when I saw someone snort gibb through a pair of groucho glasses. Just so they could get it for free...
5)K Also known Special K or cat morphine!!! Someone came up the wikkid idea of taking cat morphine to make you high. I must thank this man sometime...*grumble grumble* The big side affect of taking K is that you might become 'K'ed out or 'K walled'. What this means is that you basically 'shut off', you just sit in a frickin' corner, high as fuck not doing anything. Sounds like fun to me! Gidde up!(*puke*)
6)LSD Also known as acid. The strongest of the hallucinagens, LSD gives you powerful, and very intense hallucenations. Possible side affects include permanent spine damage and brain damage. The two things my father said never to do in my life were: A) Never smoke and B) Never touch acid. I can happily say I've complied with both rules.
7)Cocaine or Crack I personally have never seen anyone do coke or crack before but my friends have. One of my friends was even offered to go do some with a person. Anyways, I'm sure you all learned about this drug in school so I won't reinterate here...
8)GHB The 'rape' drug. I haven't heard of any cases of its use in Ottawa (but then I don't really go looking for that kinda news) but they have a problem with it in Toronto. For those who haven't been scared by reports on Oprah yet, GHB is clear, and odurless liquid that can easily be slipped into someones drink. Once ingested, the person becomes comatose.
Promoters are doing a good job in Ottawa to keep GHB away. If you're bringing water to a party it must be un-opened(and most of the time they don't let water in-but I think thats more for finanncial purposes than anything else.) Ways for you to avoid it are, bring your own water and watch it/know where it is as often as you can. Do not take water offered by a stranger no matter how cute he is or thirsty you are. Don't pick up water you see lying around on the ground. Basically use common sense and listen to what your Mommy told you.
Those are just some of the more 'popular' drugs to be found at raves. I'm sure you can find lots more wonderful chemical inventions that man has created (yay for sciene =(. A big thing that I have found out over the past while is that you shouldn't be concerned with who is doing what. If others decide to use drugs, thats their problem, not yours. If its a friend of yours, express your concern for a bit. But don't be so patronizing that it gets them pissed off at you. That doesn't help at all. Doing drugs doesn't make you less of a person and not doing drugs doesn't make you a better person. So don't worry if the rave is 'all sketched out', your not right? So that means you can still have a good time...peace
