Can Congress Kill the Rave?

Aug. 16 -- Generational showdowns abound in music history. In the Prohibition era, flappers and free-flowing jazz and booze irked authorities. Decades later, buttoned-down elders condemned Woodstock as just a hippie drug fest.

Now, politicians are targeting raves, the all-night electronic music and dance marathons held anywhere from nightclubs to open fields — also known these days as "massives," or "desert parties." Young devotees of rave culture claim that no musical genre in recent memory has been so endangered by a misunderstanding political and ruling class.

If a proposal working its way through the U.S. Congress becomes law, raves could become extinct, they say, or at least driven far underground. Proponents of the bill say they're not specifically targeting rave parties or dance music but so-called "club drugs" such as Ecstasy, Rohypnol and GHB, which they say permeate rave culture.

The RAVE Act, which stands for "Reducing Americans' Vulnerability to Ecstasy," expands the federal "crack-house" statute, designed to prosecute anyone whose buildings are used as drug havens, to include party promoters. Under the Senate bill, anyone involved with the planning of a rave who knows drugs are used, exchanged or made there could face criminal charges and be subject to a civil penalty of $250,000 or two times the gross receipts derived from each violation.

The legislation's broad language may appear to encompass any nightclub or other venue where drugs may be present, but the act's title suggests that the real targets here are raves.

"This gives prosecutors a common-sense tool to go after the worst kind of promoters, those who seek to profit from drug use by young people," said Chip Unruh, a spokesman for Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., who sponsored the legislation. "A lot of these folks advertise the parties as alcohol-free for parents then through a wink and a nod or through covert flyers let [young people] know drug use will be permitted there."

A similar bill in the U.S. House of Representatives seeks to hold "promoters of drug-oriented entertainment" liable for hosting events at which drug use is widespread.

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Federal drug enforcement authorities have been focusing their efforts more in recent years on the increasingly popular Ecstasy — the street name for MDMA, or 3, 4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine, reputed to bring euphoric highs to users.