BLUE NITRO CAN CAUSE COMMAS, [sic] OFFICIALS WARN

Dietary Supplement Is Used By Many To Create Sexual Euphoria.

Available in vitamin stores and sex shops, Blue Nitro is promoted as a
dietary supplement while being purchased for its side effects,
including the ability to create sexual euphoria.

Police and medical professionals have warned that the green, minty
potion, which has become increasingly popular in San Francisco, can be
dangerous.

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 drinking Blue Nitro.

Blue Nitro, also sold as Vitality, has the same chemical composition
as gamma-hydroxybutyrate, one of several date-rape drugs, police
spokesman Sherman Ackerson said.

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, said Jo Ellen Dyer, a pharmacist with the California Poison
Control System.

"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."

Dyer said there have been at least a half-dozen emergency room visits
involving Blue Nitro throughout California since December, shortly
after marketers legally distributed samples to individuals and sex
shops in San Francisco.

Distributor Rick Alvarez said Blue Nitro, manufactured by the West
Palm Beach, Fla., company Alpha Earth Inc., is safe and is no drug. He
said it is a dietary supplement that must be used with great caution
to avoid side effects. It is not to be sold to anyone under the age of
21.

"This product, when taken properly, does not have any negative side
effects," Alvarez told the San Francisco Examiner from his home in
Miami.

Alvarez noted 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.