EDINBURG - A CHANNEL 5 NEWS investigation might have you asking more questions the next time your teenager goes out with their friends. What many parents assume is a party might actually be a rave.
Raves are basically all-night dance parties with lights and loud music. They're exploding in popularity in the Valley right now. CHANNEL 5 NEWS went undercover and we found teenagers, including middle and high school students, using drugs and putting themselves in danger.
Eighteen-year-old Anna describes a rave. She says, "You just play techno music and you have different color lights and stuff…and you do Ecstasy. And usually it's not just Ecstacy. Usually people are drinking too or they'll be smoking weed too."
Anna's been to more raves than she can count. She started partying and using drugs when she was 13. She says she thinks rave organizers are targeting teenagers.
Eighteen-year-old David Nava and CHANNEL 5’s Will Ripley went inside a rave with undercover cameras.
"I saw a lot of kids passing Ecstasy. Dealing it. Asking other people if they wanted to buy some," Nava says. He and Ripley were both offered Ecstasy several times. They also saw teens smoking marijuana and rolling joints.
"In the parking lots when you left or before you came inside, there would be people standing next to their cars selling drugs," Nava says.
The promoter for this event was Ready Set Rave! Productions. We asked Marcos Hinojosa, who goes by the name "Dos," if his parties condone drug use.
"I really, really don't appreciate you guys coming out here," Hinojosa said.
"It's (expletive) offensive. This is the only way that we can expose electronic music to the masses of the Rio Grande Valley," he said. "So, we're trying to do our part."
Hidalgo County sheriff's deputies arrested at least one rave attendee for marijuana possession. The Hidalgo County fire marshal eventually shut down the rave for building code violations.
The fire marshal shut down another rave in Donna over the weekend. They found 14-year-olds partying there.
"The majority of kids that do Ecstasy, they'll do it, because they're not old enough to drink," says former rave promoter Jacob. "I've seen 13, 12-year-olds at these parties."
Jacob says drugs are a big part of the rave scene and drug dealers are everywhere.
"It's a loud environment. It's easy to blend in with everybody else. Some people don't care what they sell. They just sell anything to anybody. They end up hurting kids. They end up hurting people. People end up dying. People end up getting sick," Jacob tells us.
Anna has seen it firsthand. “There's been some people who will take Ecstacy and they'll feel like they're dying and they can't breathe. But yet a week later they'll still go and do it again," she says.
Angelina fears for her 17-year-old daughter's life. She found out daughter was going to raves earlier this year. "She said she was going to a friend's house and never came back," Angelina said. She says her daughter was so drugged-up she couldn't remember who left hickies all over her body.
"She doesn't even know who she was with," she said.
Anna worries, "What if she catches a disease? What if she doesn't even know if she had intercourse with somebody or not?"
Myssie Cardenas-Barajas is Executive Director of the Palmer Drug Abuse Program (PDAP). She says raves are bigger than ever in the Valley.
"It's everywhere. It's growing. It's grown a phenomenal amount," she says. Cardenas-Barajas tells us it's hard for parents and police to trace, because there's no paper trail. It's all electronic.
"MySpace, Facebook, you name it. The marketing for any kind of party now is incredible. In one click, you hit 300 people, so it's everywhere," she explains.
At the Edinburg rave, the location was kept secret until just a few hours before the event. Then a mass text message was sent out. We also discovered a MySpace page promoting rave parties all over the Valley. Anna says you can find one almost every weekend. Anna says her days of partying and drug use are over.
