MORE PEOPLE DYING AFTER USING ILLEGAL GHB DRUG

Drug Still Popular With Bodybuilders

George Bravo lay in his bed one night praying sleep would come.

At that point, Bravo hadn't slept in a week.

Finally, sweating and shaking, he crawled from bed and chugged a clear liquid.

The liquid looks like water but is really the barbiturate
gamma-hydroxybutyrate (GHB).

The drug didn't bring sleep, only hallucinations.

The 20-year-old Bravo has tried to break his GHB habit since he was 16 and
started taking the then legal drug to bulk up.

Even a law passed earlier this year making GHB illegal didn't help.

Finally, the Fort Myers house painter said he feels he is on the road to
recovery.

Bravo said lots of people looked to GHB as a way to get a perfect physique.
Now, they're addicted to it.

He wants to warn other people about the dangers of the drug, dangers no one
ever told him.

"It's been hell trying to kick the habit," said Bravo, who at one point
drank a quart every day.

"Harder to kick than cocaine," he said.

GHB is sweeping the nation as the newest high, and law enforcement
officials warn it's being used as a date-rape drug.

For years, nutritionists and bodybuilders touted GHB's positive effects.

Now illegal, they're fighting the addiction, turning to underground sources
and trolling the Internet where knock-off GHB is for sale on dozens of Web
sites.

A review of Florida autopsy reports showed GHB caused or played a part in
33 deaths between 1997 and 1999. Another 12 people died after using GHB
between January and July of this year.

GHB was found in the blood of a Lee County man who died of a multiple drug
overdose in 1998.

Experts say those numbers are conservative because tests used by law
enforcement and health professionals do not routinely screen for GHB.

The Lee County Sheriff's Office made its first GHB-related arrests this
year, arresting six people since January.

The Houdini-like drug is quickly metabolized by the body into carbon
dioxide and water, then vanishes with barely a trace in about 12 hours,
making it difficult to detect.

Bodybuilders like the drug for two reasons, said Dr. Bruce A. Goldberger,
co-director of The University of Florida's William R. Maples Center for
Forensic Medicine.

The first is the theory that GHB increases the time in a person's normal
sleep cycle when growth hormones are secreted, and that helps rebuild lost
muscle tissue.

Others say that there is no real anabolic effect, but weight lifters enjoy
a high and the euphoria contributes to better workouts.

"It's all word of mouth," Goldberger said. "There is no study confirming an
anabolic or bodybuilding effect from the drug."

Problems related to GHB are recent discoveries, found after people began
mixing it with alcohol, Goldberger said.

Prior to 1990, GHB was available as an over-the-counter pill or powder sold
mostly in health food stores as a sleep aid and as a body-building supplement.

After that, people mixed up knock-offs at home or bought it through the
Internet.

The deadly effects have become so apparent, it is now considered a
dangerous drug by the federal government, as illegal as heroin and crack
cocaine.

A bill signed by President Clinton in February makes possessing,
manufacturing or distributing it punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

The Florida Legislature went further and enacted a law Oct. 1 that not only
made the drug illegal but made trafficking it punishable by mandatory
sentences.

Bravo said making the drug illegal now doesn't erase years of addiction.

Bravo experimented with drugs at an early age, smoking marijuana and
snorting cocaine at age 13 with friends near his home on Florida's East
Coast. By 16, with encouragement from a girlfriend, he quit.

"It was the right thing to do, but the fallout was hard," he said. "I was
real thin, I wasn't sleeping."

When doctors couldn't help Bravo, a friend suggested GHB.

"I heard it released growth hormones and makes you gain weight," Bravo said.

From a supply that the friend gave him in 1996, Bravo swallowed a cap
full, which is equal to about a tablespoon.

It worked.

Bravo eventually bulked up from 115 pounds to 170 pounds.

"It did everything my friend said it would," Bravo said. "But, I was
addicted. It got to the point that I needed six caps just to get up in the
morning."

Friends were his primary source of obtaining the drug.

"It was harder to get, but I couldn't stop," Bravo said.

Users report a tolerance to GHB's euphoric and sedative effects, and
developing a physical dependence, according to Dr. Stephen Zukin of the
National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Zukin testified before Congress in 1999 about GHB's harmful effects.

Dependence is evidenced by withdrawal that includes insomnia, muscle
cramps, shaking and anxiety, Zukin said.

Bravo said he has experienced all of the symptoms. Especially loss of sleep.

"The only way I can sleep is by taking Xanax or going back to the G," Bravo
said.

Bravo said he needs the drug to survive. At one point he was drinking a
quart every day.

At $75 per quart, it was expensive.

"That's the way I dealt with life," Bravo said. "I was happy when I took
it. It made me feel normal."

Eventually though, Bravo tired of his dependence on the chemical and made
the decision to quit.

He moved to south Lee County to get away from the influences that hooked him.

After moving here, he found GHB knock-offs are readily available on the
Internet.

"I ate Xanax by the handful trying to quit," he said. "But, it's hard
knowing I can order GHB any time I want."

His high tolerance to GHB meant he had a high tolerance to sedatives like
Xanax.

Realizing he could not wean himself from the drug, Bravo turned to doctors
for help.

A Fort Myers doctor prescribed Ambien, but Bravo said the $95 prescription
didn't help either.

He then tracked down a doctor in Tampa who offered to treat his addiction
for $4,500, a price out of Bravo's range.

So little is known about the drug, there is no medical protocol for
treatment, said Janice Cook, director of Southwest Florida Addiction Services.

The agency does not treat GHB addicts. Instead, it refers calls to a
counselor, Cook said.

Six times this year people have called the center saying they need help
freeing themselves from GHB. "We're hearing more and more stories about
GHB," she said.

Over the last month, Bravo has whittled his usage down.

It started when his roommate watered down his supply without Bravo
realizing it.

"That made me realize maybe I don't need it as much as I thought I did,"
Bravo said.

His goal is to be drug-free by Christmas.

"When I was younger I didn't think about the future," Bravo said. "But I
have a lot to live for and I plan on doing it without using drugs."