Characteristics and social representation of ecstasy in Europe - Irefrea

of these substances, are facing certain difficulties in distributing the material and incomplying with both informative and other objectives.At the same time, it is necessary to obtain permission before putting them intopractice in the locales and this necessitates the co-operation of organisers and owners.And, in addition, the young people are there to enjoy themselves, preferably by dancing,and are not, therefore, very predisposed to pay attention to suggestions of any kind,much less those linked to professionals or health authorities. The majority of campaignson which we have information overcame the first difficulty by coming to an agreementwith those in charge of these establishments, hotel and employer associations, etc.Co-operation was sought from the organisers in those countries where large raveparties were held. In general they participated; some because they were aware of theproblem, others because it was in their interests, to a certain extent, to have harmminimisation teams to reduce the problematic and not to have trouble with theauthorities (Sueur, 1996).As for ensuring that young people paid attention to the material and otherinformative measures, some teams took great care in producing an attractive designwhich would appeal to young people, and in finding the way to get it to them without arebuff. The majority of the campaigns used leaflets or pamphlets, triptychs and cards asthe principal diffusion channel for the information. The design of the material formedan important part of some of these campaigns, including the evaluation, as it meantcapturing the attention of the young so that they would be attracted to it and read it.Some of the material we accumulated had a design in keeping with the housefashion or styles and, therefore, vivid colours, distorted figures, spirals, etc. In othercases, its attraction lay in its comic format also in gay and attractive colours. But therewas also material where no care had been taken to make it appealing, perhaps becauseit was not considered important, and this had a rather conventional and discreet design.Another type of material utilised was the big posters distributed throughout thecities. This was the case of the No deixis escapar la vida a tota pastilla in Palma deMallorca and Ecstasy, crève party in Lyon. On some occasions, specialist magazines forthe young were used to notable effect. Some of them cooperated very effectively inthese informative campaigns achieving the important goal of acceptance of thepreventive messages by the young themselves. The most common “approach” strategieswere the distribution of leaflets and other material leaving them on the bars or on thetables in the cases of Spain and Portugal, and the setting up of information tables whereyoung people could get material or ask a direct question of those in charge, in the Italiancampaign and those in Holland.The Project Europe carried out in Hamburg, Amsterdam and London went furtherand used the peer to peer strategy. People from the rave scene itself were trained tospread information on the dangers of ecstasy and other designer drugs, throughdialogue. These people wore an identifying tee-shirt and went to chat with young peopleor even waited until approached by them. According to the evaluations, this strategywas accepted very positively by those going to the parties.211