more good press about dancesafe...

E-Testing: Activist Group Offers Free Drug Analysis to the Local Rave Scene
By Dave Gilson
It’s almost midnight on a rainy Saturday. Inside a converted warehouse, techno music pounds across three rooms lit by black lights, laser beams, and elaborate computer graphic displays. People dance furiously, sip
smoothies, and sprawl on beanbag chairs. In an alcove near the entrance is a table with an overflowing bowl of condoms, an industrial-sized box of earplugs, and piles of pamphlets about drugs like LSD, speed, and Ecstasy. A large white banner hanging overhead reads, "DanceSafe–promoting health and safety within the rave and nightclub community."
Emanuel Sferios, DanceSafe’s founder and director, stands nearby. In the past two years, he has attended nearly fifty raves in Oakland and Alameda, from 5,000-person "massives" to smaller, less overwhelming raves such as this one. Tonight he calls out, "Free earplugs! Free condoms! Free E-testing!"
The "E" in "E-testing" stands for Ecstasy. A
nervous-looking couple approaches the table. The bottoms of their jeans are still wet from the rain.
"Can you test a capsule?" asks the young man. He takes out a plastic bag containing two clear capsules filled with white powder.
DanceSafe coordinator Heidi Eisenhauer asks the young man whether he bought the capsules at the rave. He says he did not, and she enters this information onto a form. Then she takes one of the capsules and taps it against the tablecloth, trying to get all the powder into one end. "This is the fullest cap I’ve ever seen," she says, carefully pulling its two halves apart. With a knife, she scoops a few powder granules onto a plate. Around the plate’s rim are black diamond-shaped stickers reading "Corrosive!"
"We try to strongly discourage touching," Eisenhaur explains. Earlier in the evening, Sferios had noticed small white holes in his jeans where stray drops of the testing solution had burned through the cloth.
Eisenhauer unscrews a small brown vial and holds it directly over the powder. The vial has a spill-proof top, and it takes a second or two for a few drops of the clear liquid to hit the powder on the plate. The mixture instantly turns inky black, and a faint curl of white smoke rises from it. The couple looks apprehensive. Smoke can’t be a good sign.
"It’s positive," Eisenhauer says, handing the couple a laminated white sheet that reads: "This test produced a normal reaction. It means the pill contains an Ecstasy-like substance."
If the mixture had turned orange, that would have meant it contained speed. And green would have indicated the presence of another drug called 2CB. Had it not changed color at all, that would have meant that it did not contain Ecstasy, speed, 2CB, or any other of the drugs DanceSafe’s testing kits can identify.
Eisenhauer says nothing as the couple looks over the sheet, which continues: "It does not mean the pill is ‘good.’ It does not mean the pill is ‘pure.’ It does not mean the pill is ‘safe.’ There could still be something else in this pill." Looking slightly relieved, they thank her and walk off. When they’re out of earshot, she explains that this particular reaction–the jet-black color and the puff of smoke –means that the capsule probably contained nothing but Ecstasy.
"That means it’s street purity," she says. "But we never say that to them."
Sferios started DanceSafe in his Oakland home with $3,000 of his own money nearly two years ago. It was the first program of its kind in the country, and since then it has tested thousands of pills at East Bay raves. The organization recently moved its office to downtown Oakland and has opened chapters in Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver, with up to ten more expected by the end of the year. Sferios says its Web site (www.dancesafe.org), which posts pill-testing
results, receives over 10,000 hits a day.
Pill testing is DanceSafe’s response to Ecstasy’s growing popularity among ravers. With Americans buying as many as one million doses a week, the illegal drug–also known as MDMA (full name: 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine), X, and E–has become both hot news and big business. Its popularity and notoriety continue to attract new users; doses usually sell for $20 to $30 apiece.
"Lots of people like doing it," says Sferios. "It’s got a good reputation. It produces a very pleasant feeling. Word gets around and people are willing to risk it."
The risk, he believes, is that what sells as Ecstasy is often something else–something cheaper and easier to manufacture. "The Ecstasy market is highly adulterated," he says. "I would guess it’s more adulterated than any other black market drug ever."
Fake or adulterated pills can be dangerous, he says, and free and anonymous pill testing gives users some idea what they’re getting themselves into, though whether or not to take a pill remains up to them. If they’ve had their pills tested, the logic goes, at least they can make an informed choice.
Ecstasy usually comes in tablet form, in a dizzying range of colors, shapes, and styles. Pills may be green, yellow, white, pink, or purple. Most are shaped like ordinary circular tablets, but some are squares, pentagons, stars, and clovers. They are usually embossed with logos such as hearts, stars, butterflies, Nike swooshes, Mercedes symbols, or Teletubbies.
But a pill’s appearance reveals little about its contents. Sferios has screened would-be Ecstasy pills containing caffeine and antacid, and he has found over-the-counter sleeping pills and pain relievers such as Excedrin, which has an E on it, sold as Ecstasy. Some adulterated pills contain speed and other drugs that can make ravers, as Sferios says, "drop on the dance floor."
At the end of last summer, green triangular pills started turning up at East Bay raves. Ravers who took them complained of dehydration and overheating, common reactions among Ecstasy users who spend hours dancing in poorly ventilated spaces. But those who took the green triangles, however, were also heading to the emergency room at an alarming rate.
The pills contained dextromethorphan (DXM), a common ingredient in ordinary cough suppressants and one of the substances DanceSafe’s testing kits recognize. In higher doses, DXM can cause nausea and convulsions. DanceSafe started spreading the word about the green triangles on its Web site and at raves. Like modern-day versions of Woodstock’s "stay away from the brown acid" warnings, DJs started making announcements at raves. By the end of the year, the green triangles had stopped making the rounds. But new adulterated pills show up all the time, Sferios says, and users purchase them readily. "People who’ve gotten fake Ecstasy will still try again to get real Ecstasy. A couple of bad experiences isn’t gonna do it."
Sferios had never been to a rave before he started DanceSafe. A longtime activist, he seems to have found his calling as the guru of sorts for an innovative and possibly controversial approach to Ecstasy use. He sees DanceSafe as a part of the growing harm-reduction movement, which emphasizes drug education and direct health services rather than abstinence or criminalization.
"We don’t think there’s good drugs or bad drugs; there’s just drugs."
He compares pill testing to needle exchange, now a well-accepted harm-reduction strategy for minimizing HIV-infection risk among IV drug users. While he insists that DanceSafe does not encourage or condone Ecstasy use, on a personal level Sferios feels the drug has gotten an unnecessarily bad rap. Describing it as an "acute antidepressant," he points but that psychiatrists who had used it in therapy fought the federal government’s efforts to prohibit the drug in the mid-’80s. "If Ecstasy was easier to make, it would be more popular than marijuana," he maintains.
He estimates that he has taken Ecstasy about a hundred times, though he does it less now than he used to. He first tried it when he was a bored sixteen-year-old punk rocker in St. Petersburg, Florida. For him, getting high was a way to fight the boredom of living in a town filled with senior citizens.
Ecstasy was not like other drugs he had tried. That first time, the alienated teen ended up on a beach listening to an elderly couple tell their life story.
"It was an epiphany," he recalls. Suddenly, he felt empathy and a sense of connection with others, including his parents. And the feelings did not fade after the drugs wore off.
"I credit that day for being a catalyst."
In the past year, Sferios has raised over $150,000 and hired three full-time staff members. He has not tried to publicize DanceSafe outside rave and public health circles, but he anticipates more attention as the media and law enforcement continue to focus on Ecstasy as the newest "scary drug." So far, DanceSafe has had no trouble with the law, but Sferios has hired a lawyer, just in case.
The Oakland Police Department affirms that Ecstasy is a dangerous drug.
"When you’re in possession of Ecstasy itself, that’s a crime," says Sgt. Kevin O’Rourke of the department’s narcotics unit, though he notes that Ecstasy testing kits wouldn’t be construed as drug paraphernalia. His main concern with on-the-spot pill analysis is that it does not tell users exactly what their pills contain. And testing or no testing, Ecstasy remains an unsafe drug.
"There’s not an FDA for making sure that Ecstasy is properly made," he says. "Even if there were, it’s still dangerous."
As Ecstasy goes hand-in-hand with the club scene, the local medical community has its hands full.
"I’m glad there’s a group like DanceSafe," says Joe Pred, an emergency medicine technician who is on duty at this evening’s rave. Dressed in a black EMT jumpsuit, Pred moves coolly through the crowd, his white turtleneck and the lettering on his baseball cap glowing under the ultraviolet lights. He has worked at hundreds of raves, and heads emergency services at the annual Burning Man event in the Nevada desert.
"Ecstasy rarely sends someone to the hospital by itself," he says. "I don’t want that to be interpreted as Ecstasy being safe, which it’s not."
Like the anti-depressants Prozac and Zoloft, Ecstasy affects the brain’s production of serotonin, a neurotransmitter that regulates mood, memory, sleep, and body temperature. But unlike over-the-counter Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs), which release serotonin in relatively small doses over a long period, Ecstasy floods the brain with it. This deluge creates Ecstasy’s high, but it can also lead to serotonin syndrome, a potentially dangerous condition that can cause dehydration, overheating, muscle spasms, and seizures.
"We see a lot of young people who think of Ecstasy as a party drug," Sferios says. "They take it, and they have these intense emotional, psychological, and often transformative experiences, which they have no idea how to integrate into their lives.
"When people come to our table, they’re ready to pop their pills. They’d take them even if we weren’t there. If they find out they’re really DXM or speed, maybe they won’t."
A wiry redhead in a floppy hat bounds toward the table. He knows the routine, and hands over a small whitish pill with a dolphin printed on it. Eisenhauer takes the pill, records its particulars, scrapes some powder onto the plate, and pours the liquid over it. It turns splotchy purple.
"It’s positive," she says.
"Excellent," says the redhead. Ignoring the white card she tries to show him, he tosses the pill into his mouth and disappears into the crowd.
originally from the East Bay Express...
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/archive/042800/citya_042800.html

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