49 DEATHS LINKED TO 'DATE RAPE' DRUG GHB

The Death Of A Michigan Girl Inspires Two Bills To Put It On The
Most-controlled Substances List.

GIBRALTAR, Mich.-Students from Oscar Carlson High School here say that when
they go to parties these days, they try to keep an eye on their drinks at
all times, put caps back on bottled beverages between sips and never accept
a cup from someone they do not know.

The precautions follow the death last January of Samantha Reid, a
15-year-old freshman who drank a glass of Mountain Dew laced with GHB, an
increasingly popular recreational and "date rape" drug that is colorless,
odorless and virtually tasteless. Samantha's death, one of 49 linked to the
drug nationwide since 1990, has galvanized an effort to crack down of GHB,
gamma hydroxy butyrate.

Two Michigan Republican, Rep. Fred Upton and Sen. Spencer Abraham, have
sponsored bills in the U.S. House and Senate that would put GHB on the
federal government's list of the most-controlled substances, joining heroin
and LSD as a so-called Schedule 1 drug:

The House passed its bill on Tuesday by a 432-1 vote with little debate.
The Senate bill, introduced two months ago, is in committee but is also
expected to win passage. The bills would make GHB trafficking punishable by
a sentence of five years to life in prison.

The bills would not only ban GHB but also similar chemical compounds,
including some dietary supplements for body builders that can be used to
make the drug. GHB "is easily synthesized by a lot of people who can get
the recipe off the Internet," said Dr. Felix Adatsi, the chief toxicologist
of the Michigan State Police.

Small quantities of the drug produce a temporary euphoria or sometimes
hallucinations, while slightly larger quantities produce lassitude,
unconsciousness or even respiratory failure and death. The drug can be
lethal in even tiny doses, or if poorly prepared.

Samantha was an average student who loved to play basketball at Carlson
High School in this small factory town on the outskirts of Detroit. She
encountered the drug on a Saturday night when her mother thought she was
going to a movie. Instead, Samantha and two other freshman girls joined
four young men, two of whom were seniors at Carlson, and went to the
apartment of one of the men to watch videos.

Her mother, Judi Clark, was summoned to the local hospital in the middle of
the night, where she found her daughter dead. "I fell asleep on the couch
and was woken up by the pone at 3 or 3:30," said Clark.

Douglas M. Baker, the Wayne County deputy chief prosecutor for drug crimes,
said that one of the young men at the party with Samantha, Joshua Cole, 19,
later told police that he had secretly put GHB into all three girls' drinks
to make the party more "lively." Cole also told police that two of the
other three young men had agreed to the plan and helped carry the drinks to
the girls, Baker said.

Samantha died a few hours later. One of her friends went into a coma but
was revived. The third girl never touched her drink. All four men, ranging
in age now from 18 to 26, have been charged with involuntary manslaughter
and poisoning, and, if convicted, could be sentenced to life in prison.
Cole and the other three young men have pleaded not guilty. Lawyers for the
other three young men have contended that Cole was solely responsible for
the death.

Clark has turned her daughter's death into a crusade for limits on GHB. She
took six months off from her job as a unionized construction worker after
Samantha's death to study the drug and write letters to politicians seeking
controls on it.

Clark has not touched her daughter's room. Samantha had strewn clothes on
her bed and floor in choosing what to wear when she went out on the night
she died. The clothes are still there. So are the black lava lamp, the
white strobe lamp, the posters of Leonardo DiCaprio and the movie
"Titanic," the stuffed animals and the stacks of magazines.

"I haven't even dusted," Clark said. "It's just like the night she left,
except more dust."

Michigan is not alone in having a GHB problem. The use of the drug has been
spreading in New York, California, Florida, Pennsylvania and other states.
According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, hospitals and
law-enforcement officials have reported at least 5,500 cases of GHB abuse
in 42 states, in addition to the 49 deaths, five of which occurred in
Michigan.

Yet no one is certain of the true extent of the problem. Because GHB is not
yet on the federal list of controlled substances, the DEA does not actively
pursue cases involving it, said E. David Jacobson, an agency spokesman.

The agency has helped with local investigations in some of the 29 states
where the drug is a controlled substance, including Michigan.

GHB breaks down quickly in the body, and is extremely difficult for
laboratories to detect even before it breaks down. Only four laboratories
in the country even have the equipment to detect GHB, and they can do so
only if a blood or urine sample is gathered within a few hours after the
drug is ingested, Adatsi said.

Because kits for making GHB are illegal in Michigan but legal in many other
states, the state Attorney General's Office reached across state lines to
combat it. The office bought kits over the Internet from two vendors in
Florida and Colorado last summer, then filed criminal charges against the
two men and extradited them for trial. They have pleaded not guilty.