THE DIY LINE TO OBLIVION

It's the DIY party drug for young ravers. So cheap and easy to make dealers
are hardly necessary. It's an internet drug that can be concocted in
the backyard. It took The Sunday Age 60 seconds to find the recipe
online. All these factors combine to make it a dangerously uncertain
hit.

Gamma hydroxybutyrate (GHB), also known as fantasy, GBH (grievous
bodily harm), liquid ecstasy and liquid E, is a central nervous system
depressant, an anaesthetic with sedative properties. It costs less
than $5 a dose.

Last Sunday 11 people overdosed on GHB at the Two Tribes 2004 dance
party at Melbourne Park. At 4pm the next day, a woman at the Earthcore
dance party also ended up in hospital after taking GHB. At least six
people have died after using the drug in NSW since 1999, and a
long-serving nightclub first aid officer has told a Victorian
parliamentary inquiry into "party drugs" he fears "numerous deaths in
our state from depressant overdoses" because of poor management of
party drugs by venue managers.

Ben Horan, a first aid officer for 10 years, says event organisers do
not recognise if someone is overdosing on depressants. They evict them
rather than get them help. In his submission he argues "the unstable
nature of GHB contributes to the greatest number of medical
emergencies I'm aware of out of all party drugs in current
circulation".

GHB is a gutter drug - only one step up from chroming, one
fiftysomething ecstasy dealer says. "The kids are making it
themselves. It's not hard to do it, and it's cheap... The idea that
organised crime is marketing the drug is a joke because there's no
money in it." It's the uncontrolled nature of GHB's manufacture and
administration that inevitably leads to a rash of overdoses. And that,
says the dealer, is bad for business. "If there's a risk that kids are
gonna self-administer and overdose on their first hit... well, it's
not good business sense, is it?"

Maybe it's the young age of GHB users but it seems that where there is
GHB there are overdoses. St Vincent's Hospital emergency doctor Venita
Munir has been tracking party drug admissions since late 2002. Her
preliminary figures show there were 180 cases in 2003, 63 involving
GHB. Most of the drug takers were aged in their early 20s, but St
Vincent's has treated patients as young as 16 and one man in his 60s.

"It's not a new problem this week," Dr Munir says. "It's been ongoing
and escalating for a number of years." And it's a problem the kids
using the drug know about. "Michelle" and her friends went to Two
Tribes last Sunday with provisions for a big night. She passed through
the dance party's gates with a small bottle containing GHB liquid. Her
group bought 20 millilitres for $50, and each took a couple of
millilitres about 11pm.

"Most people have it organised before they go or you can buy it from
people there," she says. While aware of the drug's dangers, she hoped
GHB would ease the body stiffness she usually got after taking ecstasy
and enhance the pill's euphoria. After the first dose, Michelle set an
alarm on her mobile phone to go off four hours later. The alarm would
prevent her from taking more G before the first lot had left her system.

"It depends on your size and the speed of your metabolism," she says.
"You've got to be pretty wary." One of her friends, a 19-year-old man,
was less careful and she would find him hours later in The Alfred
hospital's emergency ward. At 1.23am ambulance officers collected
their first GHB overdose from the rave. In all, six people would be
taken to The Alfred and five to St Vincent's with the various symptoms
of GHB overdose - drowsiness, tremors, fitting, speeding heart rate,
breathing difficulties and, for some, unconsciousness.

Alfred associate charge nurse Peta Cleary was worried she would not
have enough staff to meet demand. She feared a repeat of New Year's
Day, when the hospital had 10 GHB cases in 24 hours.

GHB is cheap, easy to obtain and easy to take - factors that make it
attractive to partygoers. Its price has plummeted in the past 12
months because of the ease with which the required materials can be
obtained, the larger number of people making the drug and its
increased popularity.

Paul Dillon, information officer for the National Drug and Alcohol
Research Centre, says: "It's been really fascinating to watch such a
dramatic turnaround... where all of a sudden you're seeing it move
from a very, very small subculture within a subculture to a far wider
group of people."

According to Dr Cameron Duff, director of research at the Australian
Drug Foundation's Centre for Youth Drug Studies, GHB can be purchased
for as little as $2 a vial. Others, like RaveSafe, say the average
price is $5 to $10 a dose - still cheap compared with other drugs or a
drink at the bar.

Inspector Steve James of Victoria Police's Drug and Alcohol Strategy
Unit agrees that the drug has become easier to obtain. He says that
previously GHB was imported but it is now more commonly produced in
the backyard or in "clandestine laboratories". GHB used to be bought
as a powder and users would mix it with water. In this way, they were
more likely to gauge the right dose for their body weight. Today, GHB
is sold as a liquid and is more commonly made from a substance called
1,4B - a cleaning fluid that, when absorbed in the body, produces the
same effect as GHB.

This means there is no way for users to know how much pure GHB they
are taking. Just one extra millilitre can be the difference between
life and death.

So what action is needed when there is such a fine line? One of the
organisers of the Two Tribes party, Future Entertainment director
Jason Ayoubi, says every precaution was taken to prevent drugs being
smuggled into the event.

He says a team of six doctors, eight nurses and two first aid
volunteers had been on hand. They were in constant radio contact with
160 security guards and response time for anyone in medical need was
between one and two minutes. "We're not putting our heads in the sand.
We know that drug use does occur at our events," Mr Ayoubi says.
Enlighten is a volunteer group that is lobbying the Government to
introduce laboratories, such as those in Europe, in which the public
can test the quality of drugs.

It's a suggestion included in the Youth Substance Abuse Service's
submission to the parliamentary inquiry into "party drug" use in
Victoria. The group calls for a regulatory framework for dance venues,
including temperature management, free water, chill-out areas, on-site
drug testing and first aid. So too does the Victorian Alcohol and Drug
Association. It says there needs to be clearer duty-of-care
requirements.