The Dangers of Club Drugs

In the United States, there are a large amount of people who participate in all night dance parties or raves where they take different kinds of drugs recreationally and party all night.  The drugs they take usually vary and “club drugs” are a pretty loosely defined group of drugs.  The National Institute on Drug Abuse recognizes them as drugs commonly used by teens and young adults at bars, nightclubs, parties and concerts.  There are several different types of club drugs and many of them are extremely dangerous. For more info on types of drugs go to  https://www.thewatershed.com/treatment/resources/drug-slang/

Rave parties became popular in the early 1990s with the introduction of electronic, techno and house music.  A rave is a party in which people take hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD, ecstasy or psychedelic mushrooms and then dance all night to electronic music.  There are usually a lot of lights and glow sticks that these individuals use in order to increase their hallucinogenic experience.  Ecstasy is the most common drug taken at these types of parties and it can be extremely dangerous because of the side effects the drug causes.  Ecstasy not only disorients the user, it is also an extreme diuretic, meaning that it causes the body to lose a lot water and become very dehydrated.  When people take ecstasy and dance all night they are vulnerable to extreme dehydration.

Not all club drugs are hallucinogens and stimulants like acid or ecstasy, there are also plenty of club drugs that have the opposite effect.  Some club drugs are referred to as “date rape drugs” and among these type are Rohypnol commonly called roofy, and Gamma Hydroxybutyric acid which is usually called GHB.  These drugs are very dangerous and are often used to take advantage of people.  GHB is a colorless and odorless liquid that can easily be slipped into a person’s drink without them noticing.  GHB causes depression in the body’s central nervous system which can cause a person to start breathing very slowly and become very tired.  It is also associated with blackouts, or complete short-term memory loss in individuals.  This often leads to people being raped and then having no memory of it the next day.

Almost all club drugs are very dangerous because they are very easy to overdose on.  The rave culture is all about promoting drug use and often people will just hand each other pills or drinks to simply take without first knowing what exactly it is that they are taking.  This can lead to mixing dangerous drugs together and exacerbating the effects of everything.  Many individuals have to be rushed to hospitals because they took too many drugs at these raves.  These drugs can also be very addicting and hard to stop using once a person starts.