Trouble spots

Robin Buckson / The Detroit News Teens at a recent rave in a warehouse on Detroit’s east side, where drugs are easily dispensed, said they had gone through the DARE program, but it didn’t make a difference in their decisions to use drugs.

Raves thrive as teen drug havens

Secret, all-night parties draw hundreds with easy access to alcohol, Ecstasy, pot

By Jodi Upton / The Detroit News

    DETROIT — The music seeps out of the massive brick building and can be heard a block away — the pounding, wordless base of industrial music that is a Detroit specialty.

    It’s the only real indication there’s any life at all down the dark, snowy side street in one of Detroit’s abandoned warehouse districts. But inside, more than 500 people brave the $20 admission, the body search for weapons, the lack of heat and suspicious portable toilets, all to have a place where, until dawn, they can experience LSD, Ecstasy, pot or nitrous oxide.

    It’s called a rave: the 90’s house party redux, a blind pig for kids. And there’s little chance the police will burst in and call everyone’s parents, mainly because the staff it would require to bust a party of 500 kids is hardly worth the payoff.

    “What you usually end up with is a pile of dope in the middle of a table,” Melvindale Police Chief John DiFatta said. “You have little to connect it to anyone.”

    Alcohol and marijuana leave a tell-tale smell, and breathalyzers can check blood-alcohol levels. But it takes a warrant to get a blood test to check for drugs such as acid, Ecstasy or GHB, making it nearly impossible to catch a teen-ager in the act.

    “That makes it very hard to investigate,” DiFatta said.

    So raves continue to thrive nationwide, advertising on the Internet but keeping the location secret till the last minute. Party-goers get directions a few hours in advance, through a recorded telephone message.

    It’s not just teen-agers. A recent Detroit rave attracted construction workers in their 20s; another was a master’s student with a degree in criminal justice. They come from all over: Ann Arbor, Algonac, Monroe, Walled Lake. A home-schooled kid from Westland.

    Some come to watch, others come to see the laser light show. But most come for the drugs.

    “Some do. I don’t anymore,” said Randi Pocs, 17, of Waterford. “You don’t have to do drugs to be happy.”

    It’s easy to spot the ones on acid or Ecstasy, by their zombie-like stares as friends blow air in their faces or flash lights in their eyes, increasing sensory input. Others sit on the sidelines, touching each other. Balloons passed around the room are filled with nitrous; others openly smoke pot.

    The party chic: faux innocence.

    Four girls helped each other attach pink mesh butterfly wings to their backs, babyish enough to want to dress like fairies but worldly enough to know better than to tell a reporter, on the record, about their drug experiences. Several sucked on pacifiers; others carried their belongings in Teletubbies backpacks.

    Other than the music and light show, there’s not much offered at this rave, except water bottles and paper breathing masks, which are rubbed with Vick’s VapoRub to intensify the high.

Not all party

    Not all kids party at raves, and many teens say you can have a squeaky clean image without being dismissed as a geek.

    “There’s quite a few parties that are clean. But even if it’s not, there’s no pressure,” said Eric Vollbach, 18, a senior at Brandon High School in Oakland County. “It’s there if you want it. I’ve never had a problem.”

    A football guard, Boy Scout, mountain bike racer and “Snowcoming King” at the winter prom, Vollbach has also been a DARE role model for the district’s 5th graders, even though he never went through the program.

    “I think some kids do it out of boredom, something to do or to fit in. I tried it, but I didn’t think it was anything special.”

To communicate with our reporters concerning this special report, send e-mail to car@detnews.com.