The Rave Panic: Electronic Dance Music and the War on Drugs, 1980s - 2010s

Undergraduate Honors Thesis

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Citeable URL: https://scholar.colorado.edu/concern/undergraduate_honors_theses/736666315

Abstract

This thesis examines the "Rave Panic": a moral panic surrounding rave culture during the 1990s and early 2000s. It argues that, while the backlash against rave culture was not solely due to the use of so-called “club drugs,” War on Drugs rhetoric, fiercely promulgated in the decades prior, fostered a political environment in which the novelty of both the rave scene and Ecstasy were seen as a threat to American youth culture, fueling a massive social and political uproar. In addition, this thesis examines how electronic music ultimately survived the Rave Panic, becoming the global phenomenon that it is today. With the recent discussion of drug use shifting toward the importance of rehabilitation and harm reduction, as well as the increasing legalization of drugs such as marijuana and psylocibin across the country, the War on Drugs now seems to have lost its luster. This thesis argues that the Rave Panic represented one of the last gasps of the drug war, and, largely due to shifting social attitudes toward drug use, the electronic music community ultimately survived. The American rave scene contracted significantly following the passage of anti-rave federal legislation, however, the popularization of European electronic music, combined with the widespread shift in thinking about drug use, allowed its resurgence during the early 2010s.

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