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Kenting features fun, busts

An estimated 3000 people attend the Spring Love party, held outside Kenting's Sea View Hotel, which was dubbed the ``Love Mansion'' for the event. The party went from 4pm on Saturday to the early hours of yesterday morning, capping a weekend of outdoor music events in Kenting that were dampened by cold, fierce winds and sporadic rain. PHOTO: DAVID MOMPHARD, TAIPEI TIMES

After a Friday evening in Kenting of downpours and wind that bent the tropical palm crowns sideways, at 3:30am there were only a couple hundred ravers left sheltering around a tented soundstage at the Moonlight party when the police showed up.

It was the first of at least six police raids in Kenting over the spring break weekend. But the pot smoking and pill taking was mostly behind locked hotel room doors, and police didn't turn up much.

Police estimate around 10,000 students and partiers had come down for at least seven concerts and raves, with the largest event drawing around 3,000.

Extensive sweeps of outdoor events, all taking place after 3am, turned up a total of 10 suspected drug users, 2 suspected drug dealers, 10 pills of ecstasy, 11.4 grams of cannabis, 115 ketamine pills, 198.6g of powdered ketamine and 5.6g of heroin, said police.

At the Moonlight party, the music went off and Hengchun police chief Kuo Chih-yu (郭志裕) appeared on stage with a microphone as around 120 officers filtered through the crowd with flashlights. He announced that the police had a warrant and would conduct a search.

"I had taken a quarter [pill of the drug ecstasy] earlier in the night, then another quarter, so I had a half left," said one attendee, a Western expatriate.

"I dropped it in the recycling bin, but I totally forgot about the lump of hash in my pocket," he said.

Last year during spring break in Kenting, police detained 110 suspected ecstasy users from one rave and demanded urine samples from all of them.

Chinese-language media reported widespread drug use at a second event that was not raided -- last year's Moonlight party.

This year police came to Moonlight first, but there were no mandatory urine samples. They examined ID cards, searched bags and in some cases frisked people, only taking in those in possession of drugs.

"First one cop frisked me, but only on one side, and let me go. Then another cop frisked me and asked me to empty my pockets," said the man.

At this nervous juncture, he said he managed to palm the ball of hashish, then drop it into the mud, where a friend kicked dirt or leaves on top of it. Police searched the ground with flashlights, but couldn't find the fingertip-sized ball of the narcotic.

"I guess it just looked like dirt, and I think they were looking for pills anyway."

"Still, I was scared to the point that I reconsidered my whole life," said the man, as his friend rolled a joint, then began smoking it in the hotel room.

After the Saturday morning raid, the man left the party. Eventually the police left and the music went back on however, continuing until around 5am Saturday morning.

The pattern repeated on Saturday in slightly fairer weather, with police searching parties, not finding much and the music continuing until well past dawn.

For another party goer, a 20-year-old female college student from Taipei, things went a little better.

"The first night I got busted, I was pretty nervous because I had some pills from my doctor in my bag. But [the second night] was just kind of a headache, and the party is still pretty fun," she said.
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