DRUG DEALS BUSTED ON INTERNET

Sellers Use Legit Sites To Move Date-Rape Brew

The NYPD is cracking down on a potentially deadly designer drug called GHB,
a so-called libido booster sold for $5 to $25 a capful at nightclubs.

Earlier last week, Queens narcotics detectives arrested four people for
allegedly selling GHB -- gamma hydroxybutyrate -- over the Internet, the
first time someone was busted in the city solely for selling the homemade
elixir.

"It's a dangerous drug," said Asst. Chief Charles Kammerdener, commanding
officer of the NYPD's narcotics division.

"We've been looking at the Internet for about a year. GHB sellers are being
seriously looked at."

An investigation into the Queens-based Web site began in March, when an
Illinois woman overdosed on the drug purchased by her boyfriend at
www.invigorating.com.

Illinois cops called the 108th Precinct after a shipping label recovered
from a bottle of Verve was traced back to Long Island City, Queens.

City detectives and investigators from the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration launched a three-month online investigation, ordering nearly2
gallons -- worth about $2,000 -- of the colorless, odorless, tasteless
liquid online, Kammerdener said.

The Web site charged $39.99 for a 16-ounce bottle and $950 for a case with a
dozen 32-ounce bottles, he said.

Some call it a sex enhancer, saying users lose their inhibitions. Others
have described it as a date-rape drug.

Kammerdener called the GHB takedown unique because the four suspects also
were running a legitimate vitamin and health Web site, www.fitnessbuff.com,
even while shipping GHB under the names Pina Colada, Verve and Dream On
around the country.

"Some of our other arrests for designer drugs have been of individuals
working out of their homes. This is the first time we have what appears to
be a reputable business selling illegal drugs," Kammerdener said. "This is
the first time individuals have been arrested just for selling GHB."

Kammerdener said the group made most of its money from GHB and had more than
$270,000 in a checking account seized by cops.

On Tuesday morning, cops arrested Scott Ansaldi, 24, the owner of the Web
sites, and Mitchell Dufalno, 19, at the business' Queens office. Both men
also live in Queens.

John Goetz, 28, of Long Island, and his girlfriend, Claudine Dematos, 23, of
Manhattan were busted at her E. 34th St. apartment, cops said. All four were
charged with possession and sale of a controlled substance.

The arrests came a week after James Weist, 21, a college student visiting
New York from John Hopkins University in Baltimore, died at Twilo, a
Manhattan nightclub.

Weist had taken GHB at the club, police sources said. His autopsy still is
pending, a spokeswoman for the city's medical examiner's office said.

Last September, Harry Bartel, co-owner of the Chelsea hot spot Splash, died
in his Greenwich Village apartment after overdosing on GHB.

Last March, more than a dozen people fell ill, and two women went into
respiratory failure, after slamming back shots of the drug at an upper West
Side birthday bash.

The city's Poison Control Center could not say how many people have
overdosed on GHB in New York City because it is included in a broader
category of accidental drug poisoning, said Dr. Lewis Nelson. The DEA has
documented 60 deaths nationwide related to GHB as of January.

"It is effectively a sedative, and in some ways it's like Valium," said
Nelson, an emergency room doctor at Bellevue Hospital. Nelson said he sees a
constant flow of club kids admitted because of the effects of GHB.

"A little bit of it may make you feel a little giddy," Nelson said. "Too
much can cause respiratory depression and other life-threatening events,
such as coma."

GHB came on the scene in the early '90s as a dance drug at music-blasting
rave parties. Before its use as a designer drug, GHB largely was sold over
the counter at health food stores to bodybuilders who wanted to reduce fat.
The Food and Drug Administration yanked the drug off the shelves in 1990.
President Clinton signed legislation making it illegal to sell GHB in
February.

Still, there are dozens of Web sites that sell GHB and even post recipes on
how to make it.

What is GHB?

Name: GHB (gamma hydroxybutyrate)

Nicknames: Grievous Bodily Harm, Easy Lay, Gook, Gamma 10, G, Liquid X,
Liquid E, Liquid G, Georgia, Pina Colada, Dream On, Home Boy, Soap, Scoop,
Salty Water, Somatomax, G-riffick, Cherry Meth, Fantasy, Organic Quaalude,
Nature's Quaalude, Zonked

Forms: Slightly salty, clear liquid sold in small bottles; also appears as
capsules or grainy, white or sandy-colored powder; sometimes the powder is
dissolved in water or alcoholic beverages.

Short-term effects: A depressant of the central nervous system, GHB produces
intoxication followed by deep sedation, lasting from one to three hours.

Physical reactions: Nausea, vomiting, delusions, depression, vertigo, visual
disturbances, seizures, respiratory distress, loss of consciousness,
amnesia, coma, death (especially when combined with alcohol or other drugs).