What we're seeing develop is a consumerist relationship to drug use. Springing up to educate these consumers are safe-rave groups. Clubs in Amsterdam and Hamburg hand out cheery postcards on the side effects of ecstasy. On weekends peer counselors from Unity, an Amsterdam-based prevention project partially funded by the EC, head out to raves. The program's based on realism, says Unity counselor Vivian Schipper.
Experimentation is often part of being young and curious.
If it's a phase, it's not dangerous. It's not just clubbers who have helped normalize drug use. Courts and politicians are starting to listen to hard-drug users and addicts lobbying for their rights. When Germany's Gerhard Schroder came to office last fall, he shifted the country's Drugs Commissioner office from the Interior Ministry which deals with law enforcement to the Health Ministry. Addiction is a disease and not a crime.