RAVE 101 OR HOW TO PARTY SAFELY

From Treating Partygoers At A Giant Dancefest To Directing Med
Students At McGill, Dr. Pierre-Paul Tellier Gets His Health Message Out

Sex and drug expert Dr. Pierre-Paul Tellier is addicted to volunteering.

That's why he was more than happy to again organize and oversee
medical services for Montreal's Black and Blue Festival, and give a
medical conference on how to help participants party safely.

"I love it," Dr. Tellier said of his longstanding professional and
personal involvement with the annual queerfest, which was held for
the 15th time over the Thanksgiving weekend. "I find it rewarding and
challenging to work with all the different people involved."

Organized by the Bad Boy Club Montreal, the week-long festival
features gay and lesbian activities and celebrations, including a
tourism exposition, a swim-a-thon and a volleyball tournament.

The biggest event by far is the festival's closing rave. About 13,000
mostly young people, gay and straight, attended the dance party,
which went nonstop from 9 p.m. Sunday until noon on Thanksgiving
Monday at Olympic Stadium.

Dr. Tellier, who is also director of student affairs at McGill
University's medical faculty, has been the festival's head volunteer
physician for the past eight years. Like in the past, he organized
and supervised the four on-site medical teams that were present
during weekend events at this year's festival.

As expected, the teams' approximately 40 members, including three
physicians, were busy. At the rave they ministered to about 50
partygoers, mostly for drug-related problems. Six others were
arrested for drug trafficking.

According to Dr. Tellier, who has devoted his career to youth care
and sex- and drug-related medical issues, many rave attendees take a
variety of drugs to stay awake and/or loosen their inhibitions. The
most popular include ecstasy, ketamine, amphetamines, LSD, marijuana
and, increasingly, crystal methamphetamine.

"We see people in two basic groups," says Dr. Tellier. "First,
there's the novice who's taking drugs for the first time and passes
out or needs to be talked down. Then there's the hard-core group that
use these drugs regularly and overdose."

Clinic staff, he adds, are able to handle and monitor most cases on site.

"We only transfer someone if they're in danger," says Dr. Tellier.
"There used to be a lot of transfers, but we haven't had one in three years."

One reason for that dimunition may be the rave-oriented public-health
efforts made by Dr. Tellier and festival organizers. The day before
the rave, for example, Dr. Tellier and fellow medical volunteer Dr.
Yvan Grenier, chief anesthesiologist at Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital
and an associate professor at McGill's medical faculty, organized and
moderated a health-care panel to discuss the care and treatment of partygoers.

It was the sixth consecutive year Dr. Tellier has organized the
"health summit," which featured a dozen health- and social-care
specialists from across Montreal. The panel discussed issues from
safety and policing during event planning to the concerns of
researchers and clinicians regarding the health and safety of
partyers. Those who attended also saw a five-minute public-health
film titled Leatherella Against The Evil Crystal Queen. A spoof on
Jane Fonda's Barbarella, the film addresses the dangers of crystal
meth use. Dr. Tellier was the film's medical adviser.

He also collaborated with the film's star and maker, Katia "Cat"
Coric, on health promotions for the rave and a half-dozen other
cultural events throughout the year in Montreal.

Those promotions include a safe-sex brochure, which is handed out in
gay clubs and distributed with tickets to events. They also put
together an event-geared Web site, and have collaborated on posters
that carry anti-crystal meth messages.

"I love working with Cat," said Dr. Tellier. "With her artistic
background, it enables me to pass on my medical messages in more
understandable ways."

Dr. Tellier's passion for public protection, however, isn't limited to raves.

In addition to teaching and supervising interns and working as an
attending physician at the Jewish General Hospital, he has worked two
nights a week for the past 20 years (including 10 as board president)
with Head & Hands, a youth community organization.

As a gay physician who specializes in adolescent medicine (he did a
fellowship on the subject at Bellevue Hospital in New York City in
the early 1980s), Dr. Tellier has also developed a number of unique
information tools and education programs on gay and lesbian health
issues. He pioneered courses on the subject for undergrads at McGill
in the 1990s.

Dr. Tellier has brought the same health-educator zeal to his new job
as director of student services for McGill's 500 medical students.
For example, he helped redesign a student services' office into The
Shagalicious Shop, a store that sells condoms, lubricants and other
safe-sex products at student-friendly prices.

"The Shagalicious Shop . . . is McGill University's latest effort to
sell its students on safe sex as the rates of abortion and sexually
transmitted infection grow in Quebec," a columnist wrote in the
National Post recently.

Like his work with high-profile public events in Montreal, Dr.
Tellier said he enjoys helping educate young people on how to have a
good time--safely.

"Part of what makes my work interesting is that I know I'm working
with an age group where I can have an impact," he said. "I know I can
help students establish a healthy lifestyle that they can keep for a
large part of their lives."

* Mark Cardwell is theMedical Post's Quebec City correspondent.