This paper reviews one of the nation's most intense recent contemporary moral panics, the media and public concern about ecstasy use at dance parties that raged immediately after the death of Sydney schoolgirl Anna Wood in 1995. The reportage of one Sydney tabloid, The Daily Telegraph Mirror, is assessed for the roles it played in producing this panic: first, its visible and self-proclaimed task in setting the key terms of debate about ecstasy consumption and dance parties; and second, in influencing the policy responses of the stale government at the time. The ongoing legacy of the moral panic engendered by Anna Wood's death is evident in the ways that media and government articulate discourses of ‘risk’ in relation to young people's ecstasy consumption when compared with the contexts and uses of alcohol. Further, the paper reveals how these different discourses have produced clearly iniquitous policing strategies in relation to Sydney dance clubs and hotels.
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