NOTHING TO 'RAVE' ABOUT PARENTS GLIMPSE TEEN PARTY MANIA.

Byline: Holly Edwards Staff Writer

VALENCIA - Rave parties - drug-saturated, all-night revelries featuring ear-blasting techno music and hundreds of teens wearing pajamas - are usually held in abandoned warehouses and remote wilderness areas, not in luxury hotels.

But the Hyatt Valencia grand ballroom will be the site of a simulated rave hosted by city officials staging the event as an educational tool for parents.

``Our parents, either through ignorance or because they don't want to know, don't have a clue what their kids are doing at these rave parties,'' said City Councilman Frank Ferry, who chairs the Blue Ribbon Task Force, the anti-drug committee sponsoring the event. ``I don't care if a kid has a 4.0 grade-point average and is a star athlete, drugs and alcohol are problems pervasive to all students.''

The pseudo-rave is scheduled for May 17 and features loud music and a slide show of footage taken during a rave party, said Pam Matsuoka, city community services analyst. She suggested the city stage the party after hearing about a similar program in Minnesota that attracted hundreds of parents.

``The biggest thing we want to do is open the lines of communication between parents and their children,'' Matsuoka said. ``A lot of parents don't know what their kids are exposed to.''

However, a Sheriff's Department narcotics officer who specializes in rave party investigations said that the simulated rave must be disturbingly graphic to be effective.

In a distorted attempt to relive their childhood, many teens go to rave parties dressed in fuzzy pajamas and carrying stuffed animals even as they ingest hallucinogenic and depressant drugs such as ecstasy, GHB, and ketamine, said Deputy Glen Stanley, who frequently attends rave parties undercover.

``Unless they show the kids puking and overdosing and laying on the floor not able to move, they're not really going to show what a rave party is like,'' Stanley said. ``If they just show the kids dancing to upbeat music in their pj's, parents could easily say, What's wrong with this?''

While few rave parties are held in the Santa Clarita Valley, there is at least one party in the Los Angeles area every week, Stanley said.

``The kids say rave parties are their culture. They're what separates them from other generations,'' Stanley said. ``They feel a connection to each other through the music, the dancing and the drugs.''

But some teens are left with permanent brain damage or a serious drug problem, Ferry said.

``Kids who are involved with drugs and alcohol don't reach their potential, and any parent who says not my kid is in absolute, complete denial,'' he said. ``I'll get in our parents' face, and I'll get in the community's face if that's what it takes.''

The councilman added that despite the widespread belief that economically disadvantaged teens are more prone to substance abuse, middle- and upper-class kids are more likely to purchase drugs because they have access to money.

``Drugs are readily available to our teen population, and they have the money to go out and buy them,'' he said.

Interviews with local teens suggest that a large number of them are involved with rave parties, said Lt. Tim Peters of the Santa Clarita sheriff's station.

``It's huge,'' he said. ``We don't have statistics, but based on what I've heard, I'd say we have a very high number of kids involved with rave parties outside the area.''