Drugs and music have long been tied together. From marijuana and jazz to amphetamines and punk, drugs and popular music have been inextricably joined.

Today the music is electronic and ecstasy and party drugs are the drugs of choice. Raves and clubs are oftentimes treated by public health experts as merely conduits for drugs, and youth drug use is presented as an unalloyed danger. Within cultural studies, raves and dance scenes are oftentimes celebrated as liberating or transgressive, but the issue of drug use within these scenes are oftentimes ignored or brushed aside. In Youth, Drugs, and Nightlife, anthropologist and sociologists Hunt, Moloney, and Evans, go beyond these limits and explore the attraction of the scene and the drugs to young people today.

Using information from over 300 in-depth interviews with ravers, DJ’s, and promoters, the authors examine the interplay between dance scenes, party drugs, and these young people’s identities—focusing on issues of Asian American ethnic identity, gender, and sexuality. In contrast to the oftentimes stereotypical views of about young drug users as naive and poorly informed, the authors explore the sources of information used by ravers, the precautions they take both prior and after using and the controls they impose on one anothers’ use. They examine the central role that the pursuit of pleasure (generally ignored within drug literatures) plays in the practice and meanings of party drug use. We learn about these young people’s frustrations with legislation controlling raves and clubs, and their general skepticism about official pronouncements on the dangers of ecstasy and other drugs.

The book examines youth, drugs, and nightlife, in terms of local nighttime economies, but also places these happenings in the broader context of national legislation and the globalization of culture and technology.