A Cop thinks so...The LA Times let a pretty pissed off cop rant about the Electric Daisy Carnival (in the Opinion Section) saying "Whoever approved the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum should be held civilly responsible."
Well, lets just say this didn't go over well with most of the readers (You should check the comments yourself). Especially when he says there is only one use for raves: "to use hallucinogenic drugs and dance all night." He also comes to the very unverifiable statistic that "90% of the people at this Electric Daisy Carnival were under the influence of some illegal drug." ---amazing use of research.
Now here's my take on it. Granted I'm actually quite disheartened and pissed, myself... at the way these big events have been going down over the past few years: it's been getting more rowdy and out of control (Remember the HARD event that got shut down last year?)... And, oh yeah, that drug thing; kids there just to do drugs, instead of just being there for the music... Why the hell would you spend upwards of $70 just to get in, so you can do drugs? Especially, when you're a broke kid. It's a psychological dysfunction in Today's privilege perceived youth (but that's an article for another time). This needs to change, especially since that state of dance has been getting bigger in the United States over the years.
The Electric Daisy Carnival tragedy proves to be the tipping point in the fight against raves. As there is now a moratorium against any 'rave' type events happening at the Coliseum until commissioners meet on July 16th (and with this smathering of headlines it could easily spread to other venues in fear of out-lash from the public). And this will probably make the 'rave' retread back to abandoned warehouses that made them famous back in the 90's where there were less medical personnel and more prevalent drug use (I'm assuming, but I'm not quite that old to fully engulf the facts).
I am pretty sure too, many families and the voting public unfamiliar with the nature of these events will easily side with what a cop has to say. Because he's a cop and he's here to protect and to serve. Plus, drugs are bad... didn't you know. Once you put "drugs" and "rave" in a headline, it's an easy sell. Like I said in my other article about the Electric Daisy Carnival tragedy:
Raves = Drugs = Bad
Don't you think education would be in effect here? You can point the finger on promoters, the events or even the music, but in the end, it comes down to choice... and the people around you. Who's the one buying the drugs? Who's the one that takes them?
Now to compare, Coachella has pretty much done it right so far... So maybe 'rave' promoters should try and emulate them because Coachella seems much more controlled and that event is open to all ages...
Which makes me think that since Coachella is all ages, it does have more adults attending (probably because of the wide range of music). Thus, there is less use of drugs and more people attending for the music. I, for one, never understood why Electric Daisy Carnival wasn't at least 18 and over because of the fact that it's basically a giant club outdoors (I'd be even happier if it was 21 and over, but that'll piss off a lot of you that aren't).
One may even look at this temporary ban as a good thing; actually forcing promoters to figure a way to stop these kids who have a knack for ruining events from ever attending... and also making it a cleaner and better environment for the people that actually want to be there to have a good time. I sort of agree with the cop in that it has been getting out of control, but for the rest of his rant... I don't think we should permanently ban these type of events and paint it as the "welcome to hell" propaganda; we just need to figure out a way to make it work. It has been done many times before and it can in the future.
We need to weed (sorry for the pun) out the people who go to these type of events just to do drugs and get back the people who belong there: the people who love the music... What it was all about in the first place.
No More Electric Daisy Carnival? in LA
Teen Dies After Attending Electric Daisy Carnival
LA Times Article: A Cop's Opinion
LA Times: Connection between Raves and Ecstacy
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