are there safe raving help groups in Melbourne?

Hi there - freo here from Hyperactive in melbourne. I am running a warehouse party this weekend for around 500-600 people, and have an important question :
hyperactive nights thread in Melb Social section
in 1996/7/8 hardware parties used to have a group (possibly "ravesafe") at their parties providing drug info and assistance for people who are taking.
legalities : i don't condone drug use but i want people to be able to get the right info and party safer
As our hyperactive nights party is not licenced anyway, i am not worried about the questions like "do you realise people at your party are taking drugs". being all ages, i am aware that people are often experimenting and want them to be able to find out what they are taking and know how to handle it.
so... is there still this sort of crew around and where can i find them . at the moment all i have is some simple posters and info we have put together for the walls of the party ...
(NOTE : crew is perhaps called "enlighten" these days?)
Please contact me anytime with info or reply here
cheers,
Freo
[email protected]

Ravesafe Melbourne is undergoing a bit of a hiatus at the moment. As discussed in this thread they don't seem to have a coordinator right now.
Enlighten is primarily a pilltesting organisation, but we also provide information, both written and oral, on commonly used "club drugs". We've just come back from doing Earthcore, and osme of ourmembers are at the Eclipse festival in South Australia right now. I'm one of the members and I'd be happy to talk to you more about our activites. Feel free to call me on 0417 351 021. And yes my name really is johnboy.
There is also a group called... er fuck what were they called? The guys next to us at Earthcore? Funded by the Human Services? Arghh... Soma will know. Let me get back to you on that.
EDIT: forgot the link.
[ 04 December 2002: Message edited by: johnboy ]

They were "earthed angels" (that's what the sign said anyhow) I believe jb, and their focus seemed to be providing drug counselling, provision of injecting equipment and milo.

yowsa but you are fast, doc! and damn but that milo was good.
yup, that's them. i have a contact number for them as well.

Thanks everyone, and big thanks bluelight for allowing us to find the Enlighten Crew!
Can't wait to have you at our party this Saturday night!

as Ravesafe Melbourne founding member and one time coordinator its a little sad to have ravers asking if such a group exists in Melbourne - not in the sense that you should know about them, rather from the angle that they're not doing things when i know they have the capacity and money to be able to.
i assumed they would have been at earthcore, if they weren't its the first EC they will have missed since the first one we did in February '97 (incidentally its also the first i haven't attended since February 95).
still that's a good record for RS, and we had become quite a well known feature at Eartchore events, with our fruit, NSP, even doctors at some events. i was going through some stuff the other day as there is a group currently working on a safe-rave application for the Tribes projects I administrate in Sydney. RS Melb did about 45 parties overall in the cours of six years, around 1/3 of those were totally voluntary services.
Non-peer based groups had been trying to circumvent RS for many years in an attempt to gain access to our funds. I'm not sure of the origins of the group that was there, they may be excellent people, but its crucial that Raver health services are controlled by ravers.
so, Melbourne ravers, please contact VIVAIDS 03 9419 3633 and give them a polite kick up the arse - find out when they're going to be back out there.

I'd just like to clarify that enlighten is NOT a Ravesafe type organisation. Our primary focus is on substance testing and the supply of information on "club drugs".
We were created due to the lack of any other groups providing this service. We have no real interest in supplying any of the more traditional aspects of Ravesafe group; counselling, support, condoms etc, although we do dowhat we can when we can, and when we are forced to.
Ideally we prefer to work in partnership with organisations that supply those services, so we can stay focused on our primary goal: substance testing.
With the event that started this thread we will be doing substance testing, as well as supplying information on the various drugs we test for. If there is no one else there doing traditional Ravesafe type stuff we will do what we can, but ideally it would be better if a better suited group was doing it.
It's ironic that more and more we are turning up to small scale, semi-legal events like this and being the only harm-min group there. We're allowed there because smaler promoters are more willing to let us do our, admittedly illegal, work. it's just unfortunate that we aren't allowed at bigger events, where we could work along side other groups.