Bluelight Stall - Part 3 - Please Read

For those new to the project I have provided the following links that will give you an insight into what has been discussed to this point.
Bluelight Stall - Part 1 http://www.bluelight.ru/ubb/Forum10/HTML/002537.html?reload=106
Bluelight Stall Mailing List Visit and subscribe if you wish to be added: http://www.egroups.com/group/Bluelight_Stall
Bluelight Stall - Part 2 http://www.bluelight.ru/ubb/Forum10/HTML/002585.html?reload=93
MELBOURNE
A major development has occured in Melbourne that I think must be mentioned. I have been contacted by RaveSafe and invited to attend their meeting next week. This is major leap forward for us and I will explain why. We always knew that one of our biggest battles was going to be to gain credibility and get our foot into doors. It is for this reason that we decided that we hold off on the Pill Testing aspect - slowly to implement it as we gained credibility.
RafeSafe are interested that we join up with them so we can run the pill testing aspect of their service - funding limitations do not permit them to travel down this road. RafeSafe are our foot in the door - they have many working relationships with many rave crews and will save us alot of ground work. So what I am saying is basically if we go down the track of working with RafeSafe we can fully implement the Pill Testing component.
Candyflip, ChemicalGeneration, johnboy I would really appreciate your assistance at this meeting. It's on Wednesday the 18/10 at 7.30pm - I'll post the address when I get home. Maybe we can have a chat about it tommorow night or set up a meeting the night before to discuss what we will present to RaveSafe.
Furthering discussions form the previous thread we also have the national issue of whether the project will be affiliated with the Bluelight site. There are many issues that we must consider, so this must be discussed before acted upon.
If it were under the Bluelight umbrella we need to consider:
1 - Some people due to their career will not be able to be linked directly to the stall due to the sensitive nature of Bluelight itself. As much as Bluelight has not been set up as a site to promote drug use - countless posts will point to this direction. This can be damaging to people's careers.
2 - Critics - If we decide to go down the path of sticking with Bluelight directly then we must put forward every scenario that our critics might throw at us - and have answers for them . We must have a strategic plan to know how to deal with these attacks and being referenced to a site in the media's eyes as promoting drug use.
If we go down the track of not being affiliated with Bluelight then we must consider:
1 - Do we keep the Bluelight name - will we be linked to the site, if not what name do we use.
There are many things we must discuss - so let the people speak!
Thank You
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Careful with that axe Eugene....
[This message has been edited by haste (edited 12 October 2000).]

Greetings all!
*throws plastic bananas around the room*
Just wanted to briefly say that this little primate is definitely in for tonight........have NO idea what any of the rest of you look like though!Hmmmmmmmm!
Also just an even quicker note on the progress of the pamphlets! I intended to have some sort of mockup done for tonights meeting, though I think this may be of litle use as there seems to be ALOT of discussion about so many elements to do with the printed material.
This includes the issue of affliation with Bluelight, the wide and varied amount/type of information already dicussed and the issue of look and size.
Methinks it would be best to get a direction from the meetings tonight and then go from there.
Can everybody who is coming to the Melbourne meeting tonight at JB's place please bring any printouts of informatoin on the net or your own written information regarding topics to be covered in the pamphlet. This way I can grab everything at once and try to edit it down into some workable form. We can dicuss this more tonight!
Also one last thing (I know, I know.........this should all be on the pamphlet thread!...oh well!) Does anybody have any decent images of the various bluelight logos that are around at the moment. hmmmmmmmmmmmmm?
Oh gotta scamper...........i'll hope to see alot of you tonight!
____________________________________________
NOTE: Plastic bananas are for eating, not throwing!

Madmonkey: heres one logo http://www.daniel.development.its-aust.com/personal/bluelight/bluelight-tshirt-3.jpg
also check http://www.bluelightshirts.com/index2.html
as there are two logos there up the top...
there are also some here http://hammer.prohosting.com/~undoc/
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SEX-and now that i have your attention, i dont want it anymore.
Go Away!

Milkybar will post minutes of the Sydney meeting today.
Finn

thanks MorpheusDaq!
Got em!
____________________________________________
NOTE: Plastic bananas are for eating, not throwing!

ok i know various people who are 3d artists, so i will ask one of them if he can design a 3d lightbulb with blue lighting effects, (as was suggested as a classy logo from another thread). However this would be pending our desicion on the bluelight affliation factor.

I feel I have to play devil's advocate here on a few issues...
1 - As much as this Ravesafe meeting is good news, keep in mind that this is exactly as far as i got last time we tried to get this going, 6 months ago. If this is to succeed it must have momentum of it's own and can not depend on Ravesafe. Sure they can open doors, but always remember that they have their own priorities, as well as limited resources. They also have their own agenda as to how they are to be perceived by funding bodies and the media. It is this last point that is worrying as they could walk away from us at any point if things became too controversial.
2 - I am still worried at this trend towards feeling ashamed of Bluelight.
So what if someone from the media tries to use a few quotes? As I keep pointing out this is a message board, and anyone is free to post anything they like. There is really only one document which could be consideredto be from Blueight itself and thats this:
About this site
If anyone can see anything wrong in that then feel free to point it out and we'll change it.
I can already hear people saying "Yeah but the media is just going to quote stuff anyway". Well let em, and we can use that point out the nature of the site, and how they were wrong to attribute it to the organization.
The decision is ultimately that of the people putting this stall together, and of course I will respect that. But I still feel it is lacking in the courage desperately needed if we are to make a difference.
This leads me onto my next concern...
3 - The shying away from pill testing. I am worried that the thrust of this stall is becoming the handing out of pamphlets. Sure, i I hear people saying that we'll just not do it for the moment, and we'll do it later when we've got more respectability... but this is what worries me the most.
With respectability comes responsibilty. Once an organisation is setup and is funded by a body, that body can make direct orders as to what the organisation can and can't do.
Just imagine that this stall has been running for 6 months, and has been recieving a healthy amount of money from,say, a state health department, to hand out pamphlets etc.
Now what happens when this stall wants to start doing pill testing? It has to clear it with its funding body. If that funding body has even the smallest objection to this idea, the stall is going to be hesitant to even bring the matter up. I mean we can't lose our funding, who would hand out the pamphlets?
This is exactly the position, I feel, that Ravesafe has been in, and will be again.
I feel we have to approach it from the opposite angle. Set up a grass roots organisation, without the worries of funding bodies or auspice authorities, that does pill testing.
The respectability and recogition will come from below, from the ravers and users, not from higher authorities. We can then take that recognition and respect with us to the next level. And their will be no question as whether or not pill testing is a vital part of our work because the results will already be there.
This is exactly how pill testing was first set up in Europe and America.
If they had taken the course of seeking he approval of funding bodies first then today there would be no Dancesafe on 20/20. It would either have been stamped out before it had begun, or it would still be underground and grass roots.
This is also,I fee, the main reason why Ravesafe is so happy for us to do pilltesting, so we can take the flak. It is self protection on their part, but i feel it is an opportunity for us.
I'll finish by using a telling example of how Bluelight is perceived.
Back 6 months ago when I was first passionate about getting something like this going, I wrote several emails to Dancesafe in America. Not suprisingly I didn't receive any replies.
I was talking about this to Moppy (Motab) from Bluelight, who I didnt realise at the time but had started working for Dancesafe SoCal. He said he was friends with Emanuel Stefarios, and would mention my emails next time he saw him.
I then received a very friendly email from Emaneul, parts of which I posted in the original Dancesafe thread. In my email I had said something along the lines of "I don't know how you feel about Bluelight, I can imagine you don't approve of us"
His reply was overwhelmingly supportive. He pointed out that altho he, now he was a respectable corporate entity, couldn't publicly support a pro-drug message he felt that Bluelight was going a long way to developing a responsible Ecstasy culture.
I thought then, as I do now, that if push came to shove I'd rather stay as part of underground culture,because this is where true change really happens.
Bluelight has done so much already to change peoples perceptions of us, and the drug we choose to take.
I'm not ready to walk away from it yet.
I feel there are two choices:
If you are worried about the legality of pill testing and respectability then go work for Ravesafe. They are already doing everything except pilltesting, they even have their own pamphlets...
OR
Take a risk and start doing pilltesting, under Bluelight's name or just by yourself.
Pamphlets have been handed out for years. If we really want to change anything, risks must be taken.
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"i think i'll stick to drugs to get me thru the long, dark night of late-capitalism..."
Irvine Welsh
[This message has been edited by johnboy (edited 11 October 2000).]

jb you have some very valid points. i for one am all for pill testing and this is the whole reason for all of this. i would never have brought up the whole seperatist issue if not for that.
1. we should not have a 'funding body' other than ourselves. selling test kits will hopefully provide just enough to help cover the costs of keeping the whole thing going
2. the bl thing - are we existing to change outside perceptions of e usage, or are we trying to stop kids getting totally fucked up?? i, for one, want to see pill testing and info stalls to keep people safe. period.
my original point was, should the powers that be realize that we are part of bluelight and actively affiliated with it, could they shut us down? could they stop us pill testing?? if the answer to that question is definately no then full steam ahead!! but are you really sure??
its the pill testing thats controversial, not handing out brochures, we can do that till the cows come home. but pill testing *will* create controversy. and when that happens, i want to know if an direct affiliation with bluelight will cause the stall to be shut down
also, i am *not* ashamed of bluelight. i am *not* trying to seperate from it. i love bluelight thats why i spend so much time here, and i'm a bit miffy that a legitimate concern would be viewed as shame.
like i said, i'm not saying we should not promote bluelight. i'm just saying lets think first! and think about the possible outcomes of our actions. what will come of this? can we realistically do the two at once and keep it going? are there ways we can do both without running into difficulties??
these are the questions no one has answered. does anyone have the ability to stop us from doing it? and will party promoters allow us to test onsite if they know we actively promote bluelight? answer these questions directly and my mind will be at rest.
[This message has been edited by atomica (edited 11 October 2000).]
[This message has been edited by atomica (edited 11 October 2000).]

my original point was, should the powers that be realize that we are part of bluelight and *actively promoting* bl, could they shut us down?

Click to expand...

look maybe i'm missing something but i can't see the logic in this.
why would authorities shut down pilltesting (which is fundamentally legal) because of an association with Bluelight?
maybe if you spelled it out a bit more we could work it out.
Bluelight is not illegal. It is controversial but this is no reason for anything to be shut down.
if by "*actively promoting* bl" you are implying activelypromoting drugs then please read the "About Bluelight" link above.

Much respect to johnboy You bring up alot of valid points that everyone should consider before we move on.
Let me stress - that I am in no way ashamed of Bluelight, I would not practically live on this site and be a moderator. I have put in countless hours and energy into this project - contacting relavant bodies that can help us. With every contact I have made I have mentioned the site and put a link to it. I only put up the suggestion that we go our own way on a few suggestions I received from experienced service providers.
As I have always stated this is a peoples project and the final vote is made by the people - I am merely throwing suggestions and options around to help better acheive our goals.
I think it's best that nothing more be said - I leave it to all the people of Bluelight to make the decision for it is your project. When a decision has been reached I am more than willing to help in whatever capacity that I can.
Thank You for your time
Sorry if this post seems harsh - much respect to everyone
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Careful with that axe Eugene....

i really think that first we need to work out our involvment with bluelight, whether fully or partial, and what out what our objectives are. i think we should only be affiliated with ravesafe, but be a totally seperate entity, this will allow us to head in the direction we want and we should only use ravesafe to our own advantage. will expand on this tonite.

okay guys ........and gals
Just reminding everyone about the meeting tonight! It's at 7pm (from memory) at JB's place:
"Prudence"
368 Victoria Street
North Melbourne
(look for the twinkling lights)
I'll be driving there so if anyone wants a lift from either St Kilda or the city i'm happy to oblige!
Don't forget to bring an open mind, every bit of information you can find and a name tag! Nah.......just kidding about the name tag bit.........
Haste......JB...........have I forgotten anything?
_____________________________________________
NOTE: PLastic bananas are for eating, not throwing!

JB great great post. As usual lots of thought and time went into that post so well done.
This post on the other hand is written a bit quicker but I just wanted to note one thing. I agree pill testing appears to be the direction this whole idea was meant to head in the first place. We want pill testing at raves, if i was just handed a pamphlet on taking ecstasy at a rave Im not 100% sure what i would do with it.
a) lose it
b) throw it away
c) take it home and study it carefully
hmmm anyways im sure i would remember an organisation that was testing my pills for me and warning against contamination of other substances in pills, aka Dancesafe.
One last thing, compare Dancesafes website to the bluelight message board.... Maybe it would be a good idea to extract the very important knowledge bluelight has onto a seperate page and from that page link back to the main message board, similar to the Ecstsay FAQ, the information in that is great.
The first page you visit when you come to bluelight as a new user is the bluelight social 2000 or one of those top forums, and not to sound rude but seriously there is a lot of misinformation there if you dont read all of bluelight and search into questions that have been answered or read the bloody FAQ which we are meant to do . Like for example checking there today i see 'I drop 3 pills a week and ecstasy isnt as good as it used to be why?" umm duh and a thread named 'farting at work' and the good old 'i shaved my pussy' thread LOL , just think back to dancesafe and imagine if they had this on there page . However again JB brings up a good point that the real work being done at raves is where the media focus will be.
So what have i said in this post? not much? who said that?
1. Pill testing is the important issue
2. Dancesafe is succesful because thier information is based on factual information, and is differnt to bluelight. However bluelight is a much friendlier evnvironment where poeple learn without really knowing they are, if that makes sense? eg: fun.

I thought the whole idea of this was to test pills. IMO thats what this stall should be about.
Also i think bluelight should be affiliated with the stall.
I see it as a bluelight stall that tests pills.
Obviously this is all my opinion.
I see it as the best way to do it. People get there pills tested and if they get the urge to find out more they remember the huge banner saying "www.bluelight.ru" (or they hold on to a handout) and they read up.
Keep up the good work guys!
Also, anyone from perth willing to put up their hand?!!?

jb its not so much the authorities going "you must cease immediately" cuz i know its legal.. its whether promoters would allow us to be at the parties... w/out their support, theres nothing.. that kind of thing. negative media attention that might cause them to not allow us access, or cause undercovers to hang around looking generally suspicious, scaring the kids away.
i dont know, i'm tired of discussing it, it was just an idea put forward for consideration.. i feel like i stirred up some horrible thing. right now i'm overtired, depressed and i want to go home. however, instead i will be at the meeting tonight so we shall no doubt discuss it then.

Sorry guys!
Looks like I may not be able to make it.......a friend has gone into hospital this afternoon! SHIT!
.......gotta go..........
keep me in touch please!

please dont apologise for bringing this up.
as i stated up there i am playing devil's advocate, ie bringing up all the possible bad implications, just as you are.
these things do need to be discussed.
i think this has, once again, shown the difference between me and other people. i welcome a confrontation. from simply discussing ideas here, to going toe to toe with authority.
what i often forget is that not everyone is like me. as much as i have tried to keep my laguage as neutral as possible, it is often easty to confuse my discussing an issue to me disagreeing with a person.
we need to be clear about what we are doing here if we have any chance of succeeding. we will be facing much tougher deconstruction of our ideas once we go public.
we also need to keep some emotional distance from our ideas, and be willing to step back from them and re-assess. i am the first to say that sometimes i can get emotional about these issues.
also much of what I brought up as a response to you, was discussed in the last meeting. this is mainly why i thought i'd hash it out here, for the benefit of everyone who cant make it to the meetings.
yes, it is a valid point that our rep would put some promoters off, but, as we talked about at the last meeting, there are some promoters that are going to be impossible to convince, until we have shown thru our actions that this type of stall is needed.
the crews that run the docks parties, for instance, are never going to allow us in. they have a problem with even above ground, respectable harm minimisation groups. the reason for this is that will not, and in a sense are not allowed, to even admit that drug taking happens at their parties.
whether this has anything to do with the fact that their major sponsers are brewing companies?... well you connect the dots...
but this is kind of irrelevant, because we are already getting the support of the small and medium sized promoters, which is who we really need to target anyway.

I'm at work now so don't have time to respond as I would like (i will when i get home)
but
At the Sydney meeting last night we discussed the possibility of directing people straight to the Aus/Asia/NZ part of Bluelight. Not only is this part of Bluelight more relevant to Australian punters, but the content is *so* much better.
I can only speak for the Bluelighters at the Sydney meeting .... but not one of us had concerns about the stall being a *bluelight* stall because we were ashamed of bluelight.
and
We all felt that pill testing is something that we *need* to do.
but
we *must* get legal advice concerning the legalities first.
Will elaborate later.
Milkybar is going to post regarding the issues discussed in Sydney very soon.
Finn

It was decided in Melbourne during our meeting tonite that a mailing list would in order.
I have set up an e-mail group for those involved in the stall - this will hopefully take away the clutter from these threads. Please feel free to use it.
Any important developments and ideas please continue to post in the relevant thread.
Those wanting to be added to the mailing please email and I will add you. Or go to the following link and subscribe.
http://www.egroups.com/group/Bluelight_Stall
Thanks Haste
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Careful with that axe Eugene....
[This message has been edited by haste (edited 12 October 2000).]

i assumed from the start that we would be actively trying to get ppl on to bluelight as well as pilltesting. but yeah i didn't think of ppl's reputations...
the idea of pamphlets is great but if it is just going to be another standard info pamphlet, well there are enough of them around. if pre/postload can't be discussed then EZ-testing would have to be the primary focus. as well as education on possible pill contents, MDMA, speed, ketamine. i think ppl are gonna need something new, something they haven't seen before otherwise any efforts will be in vain.
see the appeal of bluelight is it's alternate stance on drugs. officially, whatever... but you can come here and talk about the positive side of drugs with people who will assist your usage. so if the pamphlet was just another -
Ecstasy = MDMA = methylydioxy...
effects of E - euphoria, loss of appetite.. etc...
advice - you should eat healthy foods, get sleep etc..
that is already being done. we'd really have to do something more than tell ppl what E is and what it does to you to get them interested.
we need to get ppl to bluelight and direct them to the goods - deep's post, everybody read threads.
so i would think the stalls would be better off directly promoting BL.. as well as other's.. dancesafe, erowid. etc.
as far as pilltesting goes somebody has to jump in the deep end. the more exposed testers are the better, even some negative attention on testing could well inform ppl of their existence, and mayb even where to get them. mayb the media could do some of our work for us... but i do understand how this could have undesirable aspects.
my 2c
tony