DESIGNER DRUG WAR

As lawmakers try to quash designer drugs like GHB and GBL, chemists and
distributors outrun the legislation by tweaking the formulas and selling
kits on the Internet

A 23-year-old female college student walks into a San Francisco
detoxification center, asking to be admitted for her drug addiction. She is
suffering from increasing symptoms of paranoia and has both visual and
auditory hallucinations. Her heart races and her blood pressure has jumped
to the danger point. It takes nine full days for her to recover from bouts
of paranoia, extreme agitation and delirium.

In Texas, a young male patient is rushed into an emergency room, deep in a
coma and suffering from depressed respiration. The emergency technicians
scramble to save the patient's life, stuffing a breathing tube down the
man's trachea. Suddenly, in the midst of the procedure, the patient sits
upright on the operating table, wide awake, able to breathe normally and
wondering what the hell he is doing there.

In Georgia a "date rape drug" conviction of two Atlanta men is challenged
because--although there was no doubt that sex was involved--the victim
cannot recall the alleged rape because the drug caused her to have no memory
of it, and all traces of the drug had dissolved in her body before she could
be tested by police.

And in yet another state, eight young people are rushed to the University of
Michigan Hospital emergency room suffering from overdoses of some new party
drug, all with symptoms of suppressed activity in their nervous systems.
"Two or three of the cases could have resulted in death" if they had not
been treated immediately, a hospital spokesperson says.

Separated by thousands of miles, these incidents all have one common
denominator: all of them involved the use of GHB (gamma-hydroxybutryate
acid), an increasingly popular party drug often used by Bay Area high school
students in all-night dances called raves.

The drug is also known by the name "liquid ecstasy" and is sometimes
confused with another "designer drug," MDMA
(3,4-methylenedioxy-N-methylamphetamine hydrochloride), or the original
"ecstasy." Although they are chemically unrelated, the effects of the two
drugs can be similar, particularly as a sexual stimulant. It was MDMA that
eight San Jose middle school students ingested last week on their school
campus, sending them to the emergency room and to possible school discipline
and criminal liability.

Last year, citing GHB-related emergency-room episodes that went from zero to
103 in Los Angeles and zero to 83 in San Francisco between 1992 and 1996,
the California Legislature passed legislation making possession of the drug
a crime.

But before fans of the substance had time to mourn its loss, Internet
distributors and amateur chemists were hopscotching over the law by changing
a chemical compound or two, marketing a new, equally intoxicating chemical
cousin called GBL (gamma butyrolactone). When mixed in water with another
easily obtainable chemical, NaOH, GBL can be transformed into GBH, which is
still legal. In fact, packages containing the two chemicals in separate
bottles were marketed on the Internet as "GBH kits" shortly after the GHB
ban went into effect.

According to the National Clearinghouse for Alcohol and Drug Information,
"at small doses GHB encourages a reduction of social inhibitions, similar to
alcohol, and an increased libido." Thus, it is often used in both the
straight and gay communities as a sex enhancer. At higher doses the drug
induces a deep sleep. At higher doses still, the drug user can appear to be
in a coma and adverse respiratory effects can occur. When mixed with
alcohol--which distributors universally warn against doing, but some users
do anyway--it can be fatal.

In 1990 the Food and Drug Administration began cracking down on so-called
designer drugs, bringing criminal charges against GHB distributors and
warning that GHB "can cause dangerously low respiratory rates ...,
unconsciousness/coma, vomiting, seizures, bradycardia and death" and
therefore "poses a significant public health hazard."

As a synthetically produced drug, GHB has been used since 1960 in Europe as
a general anesthetic. In both Europe and America, GHB is being used by some
doctors both as a sleep inducer to treat victims of narcolepsy and insomnia
and as treatment to ease the symptoms of patients trying to recover from
alcohol addiction. In the United States, the drug has been legally sold over
the counter to bodybuilders as a growth hormone stimulant. It was sold under
such names as Renewtrient, Revivarant, Blue Nitro, GH Revitalizer, Gamma G
and Remforce.

GHB can also be easily manufactured by street and Internet chemists, and is
often sold underground at raves in pill or bottled liquid form, where it
goes by such names as "Liquid E," "Great Hormones at Bedtime" and "Georgia
Home Boy." Slightly altering the letters, police sometimes refer to it as
"Grievous Bodily Harm."

"Kit suppliers used to abound on the Internet," writes one GHB advocate,
"Chemgirl," on her website. "However, due to the over zealous actions of the
DEA, FDA and other 'law enforcement' agencies, all the kit makers in the
U.S. have shut down." "Chemgirl" now suggests that interested parties obtain
the two chemicals separately, one of them from a soapwork supplier. "DO NOT
mention GHB ... or ask any questions when communicating with [the soapwork
supplier]," she warns. "They are a real soap company. ... I have had several
emails from people who have had their orders refused because they ask GHB
related questions. This is a great source. Please don't fuck it up by asking
stupid questions or else they might stop selling NaOH without all the other
soap making shit."

One out-of-the-country GHB kit distributor, Pelchat Labs, openly boasts on
its website: "I stopped shipping to the USA ... because the FDA made me
believe that [GHB] and [GBL] were illegal," the owner writes. "After
speaking with one of their 'special agents' I learned that they were in fact
not illegal ... but they were after suppliers who were selling to
individuals. ... This 'special agent' told me that there was no problem to
resell to companies who have legitimate uses. I checked my orders and I
noticed that a big part of them were already to companies. I decided to ship
my chemicals to the USA again to these companies (and new ones). If there is
a way for me to know that you will do something illegal with your order, I
won't send you anything, I will refund you and I won't answer your emails."
To qualify as a "company," Pelchat Labs says the buyer must only put a
company name on the order form. "How will you know my company name is for
real?" the website asks in a FAQ. "That is the problem," the lab owner
answers. "I won't know. I will have to trust you. I know from experience
that Americans are honest."

IN AN EFFORT TO CLOSE the chemical loophole, the California Legislature
passed a law this year, sponsored by Assemblyman Mike Honda (D-San Jose),
making possession of GBL (Blue Nitro) a crime. In urging its passage, Honda
called Blue Nitro "deadly" and "a potent and powerful date-rape drug used by
deviants across the state." A spokesperson for Honda's office said that the
bill was introduced at the urging of law enforcement officials from around
the Bay Area. "We didn't have any evidence that there was a particular
problem in the South Bay; it's a statewide concern," the spokesperson said.

But some independent medical and chemical experts say that GHB is a
therapeutic drug that poses no risk to public health if used responsibly,
and that its banning is, according to one newsgroup poster, a "rush to
judgment crisis ... manufactured by the [Food and Drug Administration],
aided and abetted by the [Drug Enforcement Agency], compounded by local
police, inflamed by the media and perpetuated by ignorance."

Last year, in its international newsletter distributed to patients,
physicians and researchers, the Narcolepsy & Sleep Disorders organization
called GHB "one of the few apparent success stories in the recent history of
narcoleptic drug treatments. It has been extensively studied with some
individuals having used the drug with good results for over 14 years."
Stating that there were few reports of GHB prior to 1990 when it was a
legally available over-the-counter drug with printed warnings and dosages
and produced by reputable manufacturers, the organization said that its
members were not allowed to attend and present evidence at an Oakland
FDA-sponsored conference on GHB use in Northern California while the
GHB-banning bill was being considered by the Legislature.

And one local expert believes that the effort to ban GHB has made the
problem worse, rather than better, driving people away from established
companies to underground manufacturers--and to new compounds.

"One of the things I predicted, in the face of the government's war on GHB,
was that alternatives would quickly emerge into the marketplace," writes
Steven Wm. Folkes, executive director of the Menlo Park-based Cognitive
Enhancement Research Institute and a self-professed GHB user.

ACKNOWLEDGING THE MANY reported problems associated with GHB use, GHB
advocates on the Internet blame them both on what they call "misuse" and on
the government crackdown. One writes: "The problem is drunk teeny boppers
take 10 times an adult dosage when they are already waxed. No wonder they
pass out. GHB is NOT to be mixed with alcohol. Therein lie most of the
problems. The rest come because the FDA has forced people to make it at home
rather than buying quality professionally made GHB."

And because GHB is a chemical that naturally exists in the body, there is no
telling how many of the problems attributed to the drug actually come from
its illegal use. Last month, Alameda County law enforcement officials were
investigating illegal use of GHB as the possible cause of the death of a
13-year-old Hayward boy after a small amount of the drug was found in his
body. "But the amount of GHB that was found ... is consistent with the
amount that can be found naturally in the body," a coroner's spokesperson
told the San Francisco Chronicle. "As a result," the newspaper concluded,
"officials are still unsure exactly how [the youth] died."

But there is one thing that law enforcement officials, government drug
regulators and GHB advocates all agree on: At unknown dosages or ingested
along with other drugs or mixed with unknown additives or alcohol, GHB can
be deadly. Particularly vulnerable are youthful participants in all-night
rave dances, where party drugs are often taken together and passed around
without knowledge of their content or effects.

As one young Bay Area woman warned teenagers in an email circulated this
month on the Internet, "For all of you out there that think G is okay, think
again before you and your friends take it! I was at a party last weekend
that was flooded with G. ... People kept throwing up after taking it. ... I
know this may piss some of you off, but if you want to live dangerously,
that's your prerogative. I'm a mother, and I plan on living to see my son
grow."