SEXY ELIXIR PROMISES EUPHORIA, BUT CAN TRIGGER COMAS INSTEAD

RASH OF ER visits as Blue Nitro hits town

Touted by its promoters as a euphoric elixir that can boost your mood, burn
fat, rev up your sex life and even send you off into blissful slumber, a
trendy new brew known as Blue Nitro has hit San Francisco.

But even as phones at vitamin stores and sex shops ring with requests for
the potion, police and medical professionals are warning that the chemical
composition of the liquid creates more risks than benefits.

After a few too many comatose patients started arriving at emergency rooms
across The City, the police are going public with their concern.

On Wednesday, officials from the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Food
and Drug Administration and the Poison Control Center plan an information
session to describe the problems some people have experienced after
ingesting the green, minty fluid being sold as Blue Nitro, or Vitality.

Even though Blue Nitro is legal to sell, recent tests in the crime lab
raised troubling questions about its safety, said Officer Sherman Ackerson
of the San Francisco Police Department.

"We found it has the same chemical composition as GHB, which is against the
law currently," he said.

GHB - or gamma-hydroxybutyrate - is a colorless, odorless substance known as
liquid ecstasy that became popular on the dance club scene and has been
documented as one of several date-rape drugs.

"Blue Nitro is a chemical analog to GHB," explained Jo Ellen Dyer, a
pharmacist with the San Francisco division of the California Poison Control
System.

Commonly put in beverages, GHB gives users a feeling of euphoria, but when
combined with alcohol or in an overdose, it can result in coma and other
serious respiratory problems.

The same is true of Blue Nitro, Dyer said.

"My concern is that I don't want someone walking around thinking this is the
latest form of vitamin C that can cure the common cold," she said. "This is
GHB, it can hurt people, and they shouldn't do it."

Though exact statistics were unavailable, Dyer said there have been at least
a half-dozen emergency room visits involving Blue Nitro throughout the state
since December, shortly after samples were distributed legally to
individuals and sex shops in The City by marketers.

In one case, a 71-year-old man from Monterey said he mistakenly swigged a
few sips from the bottle he left on his night stand, thinking it was water.

He ended up in the hospital in serious condition, though he has since
recovered. Several other cases - many involving patients who arrive comatose
and in need of intensive care - have been recorded at San Francisco General
Hospital, Dyer said.

It is especially popular in gay circles because it heightens the sexual
experience by making users "feel amorous, like you want to be touched and
touch everybody," said Shawn O'Shea, the former editor of the gay newspaper
San Francisco Spectrum. It's also much less expensive than ecstasy and other
street drugs, often selling for around $10 a hit, approximately two soda
bottle capfuls of liquid.

Rick Alvarez is the exclusive distributor of Blue Nitro, which is
manufactured by a West Palm Beach, Fla.-based company called Alpha Earth
Inc. Alpha Earth is one of about 10 companies currently selling similar
products.

Says it's no drug

Alvarez defends the safety and legitimacy of his product - which was
introduced just five months ago - and insists that Blue Nitro is not a drug,
as many of its critics claim.

It is a dietary supplement that must be used with great caution to achieve
the benefits with no negative side effects, he said, explaining that that is
why it is not to be sold to anyone under age 21.

Here is the tricky part: While Blue Nitro does not contain GHB, it
metabolizes into GHB inside the body, Alvarez said.

In fact, the company Web site boasts that the positive effects of Blue Nitro
"may be due to the relation to GHB." And it goes on to assert that the
liquid is not toxic and "like GHB is 100% safe when taken as directed." It
also includes a disclaimer - in capital letters and with exclamation
points - that it should never be taken with alcohol or any drugs.

"This product, when taken properly, does not have any negative side
effects," Alvarez said from his home in Miami.

"But if you abuse it, there is a dark side, no question about it, and we
will never deny that. You're always going to find somebody who abuses it,
just like you can walk into a liquor store and find someone who will abuse
something there."

It is the handful of cases where the product guidelines have not been
followed that gain widespread attention from the press and law enforcement,
he said.

Satisfied customers

There are thousands of people, who - like himself and his wife - regularly
use the drug and enjoy its benefits, said Alvarez.

"We use it safely as recommended and have great benefits from losing weight
to sleeping in the deepest stage of sleep so we have a lot of energy," he
said, adding that it has also proved to be an incredible sexual enhancer.

Alvarez also points out that FDA officials in Florida, Alabama and Georgia
have purchased several bottles and sent inspectors down to the manufacturing
plant since the product was first created in August and have yet to halt its
production.

Meanwhile, the popularity of Blue Nitro continues to soar, according to
Alvarez, who heads a national network of 10 distributors.

Last week, for example, he said, he sold nearly 5,000 bottles of Blue Nitro
and the numbers keep climbing every week.

Even shop owners who don't sell the product are growing aware of the demand
for it.

Andy Nevarez, who works at Great Earth Vitamins on Castro Street, said his
store will not sell Blue Nitro but receives daily inquiries from those
looking to buy a bottle for the suggested retail price of $64.95.

"We get lots of requests for it, sometimes as many as three calls in a day,"
he said. "I have tried it myself and it is the nastiest thing in the world.
I was sweating, cold, dizzy. It was terrible."