The Rave culture exploded in Johannesburg with no warning. We were working on the Street every day and did not see it coming. We were talking to pushers, pimps, prostitutes, narcs, good cops and other policemen every day - and before we coulf wipe out our eyes we had Rave Parties all over Johannesburg where up to 5,000 people congregated at a time - and no violence. Ours was the most violent city in the world where, for example, no less than 500 people get killed in our neighbourhood because of New Year's celebrations. Yet, no violence when 5,000 youngsters get together to Rave. We went to investigate and raved with them kids and found the drug so peaceful - yet it fried their brains, gently, on the quiet. The drugs were home made and there was no consistency in among the batches. Very very dangerous.
Amsterdam had the same problem at the same time Johannesburg had it. The Royal Dutch Government took us, Adele and Jean, on a tour to learn from their operators at City level what they were doing to deal with the problem. Pragmatic as the Dutch are they had teams of workers who would set up testing tables at Raves and would test your E's for free and if they were bad, would swap you for a good one. Govt handing over drugs to kids - true. Yet, on an average night they must save at least a few hundred kids who would otherwise have fried their IQs out, or may have collapsed in convulsions from brain seizures - the way it went down in South Africa.
