OF SMOKES AND TOKES

After Finding Cigarettes Contain An Illegal Drug, Joe McGhee Battles
Bureaucrats, Regulations, Corporations And, Finally, The Truth

Joe McGhee sits at a small circular table outside Java City in the
Roseville Galleria Mall. He looks no more than 21, all stylishly cut hair
and large blue-green eyes. At present, those eyes alight with a Don
Quixote-like vision, but the windmills at which he tilts involve perceived
hypocrisies in the war on drugs.

Government officials, said McGhee, are not playing by the rules they made
up. He is positive of this because he found the illegal drug GBL in
cigarettes, and what appears to be a contradiction in the law. To McGhee,
the cigarette companies are getting away with something that would land
your average citizen in jail.

As a volunteer for DanceSafe, an organization devoted to reducing the harm
of narcotics use, McGhee has interests that lie in proving the government
wrong. He knows the drug war is a sham and just wants to prove it. As far
as McGhee is concerned, the studies claiming brain damage and addiction
caused by some drugs like Ecstasy and GBL are produced with a government
agenda involving a bottom line: money.

"If they're going to enforce these laws they need to do it equilaterally,"
said McGhee, "and not single out the drugs that the government's not
profiting from."

His personal research led him to believe that Ecstasy and other drugs often
grouped under the heading "club drugs" are not as dangerous as the
government would like the public to believe. To step out a little further
onto that precarious ledge usually reserved for radicals and junkies,
McGhee even believes that when used responsibly, drugs like GBL can have
great medicinal benefit.

Yet it was when McGhee began researching the chemical ingredients in
cigarettes that he made his big discovery, his smoking gun, his bombshell
that led him to contact SN&R and actually get a call back.

McGhee found that many cigarettes contain something called
4-hydroxybutanoic acid lactone, according to published ingredients lists
from two of the biggest tobacco companies, RJ Reynolds and Brown and
Williamson. And from his previous research on club drugs, McGhee knew the
chemical is actually just a different name for GBL, a substance found on
both the California and federal controlled substances "Schedule One" lists.

Schedule One of the Controlled Substances Act is reserved for illegal drugs
with no known medicinal value. It's a virtual all-star list of some of the
best-known illegal substances in the United States, including opium,
marijuana, peyote and cocaine.

For McGhee the discovery began an odyssey of red tape, government agencies
that refused to claim responsibility and unreturned messages for tobacco
companies. All for the answer to a simple question: Why are major cigarette
corporations allowed to use a substance that would land an average citizen
in jail for possession? What was going on here?

One of the newest additions to the list of bad-ass illegals is GHB,
commonly known as the "date rape drug" because a large enough dose can
cause blackouts and amnesia. It disappears from the body quickly, making
the traditional pee-test almost useless for detection.

The government added gamma-butyrolactone, or GBL, to the controlled
substances list as a precursor to GHB: add some chemicals to it and presto
chango, you have a drug featured on the controlled substances list. Or you
can just let your own body do the work, because GBL gets broken down into
GHB in the bloodstream all on its own.

At the UCD Poison Control Center, Judith Alsop said diversion from its
intended use as an industrial solvent is often how GBL hits the streets.
The DEA's Office of Diversion Control handles illegal substances with
perfectly legal uses as long as those uses don't involve human consumption.
It keeps a diligent government eye on whom GBL parties with. Knowing that
conversion to GHB is as simple as swallowing an amount of the liquid, it's
arguably easier to produce than such nasties as crack or methamphetamine.

When consumed in what Alsop refers to as therapeutic doses, GBL and GHB act
as a muscle relaxant and anxiety reducer. At high doses, ingestion causes
vomiting, confusion, and the blackouts that have caused it to be labeled
the date rape drug, because many rapists find it useful in procuring a
victim. The term "dose" is used loosely, however. In liquid form, said
Alsop, a dose of GBL is often described as a "capful."

But what about the danger posed from the amount of GBL included in a
cigarette? Alsop says it's minimal. She recognizes the potential for abuse
in large quantities of GBL, but thinks, "If a person is smoking, they're
probably gonna have problems other than those caused by GBL."

It's not about taking away

choices. It's not even about stopping people from smoking. For McGhee, it's
about being fair. And if the average person can't walk down the street with
a tube of GBL for personal use, why the heck are cigarette companies
allowed to sell it?

Determined to bang on the door of every government agency until he got an
answer, McGhee started with the one that handles all illegal drugs, the
Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement. But cigarettes do not fall under the
jurisdiction of the Bureau, so he was back to square one.

Next on McGhee's list of government agencies that should care: the
Department of Justice. Again, no luck. Trying to get someone to speak with
him at the tobacco companies was like trying to land a quarter in the
little red circle on the State Fair midway. McGhee feared apathy on the
part of the government or something more sinister--conspiracy between the
money-lined pockets of legislators and the supplying tobacco companies.

Unfortunately, McGhee just wasn't knocking on the right doors. Or maybe he
didn't ask the right questions. As far as cigarette companies are
concerned, their ingredients lists are protected as "trade secrets," and if
they're feeling magnanimous, some will put two-year-old ingredients lists
on their Web sites.

Finally with RJ Reynolds sidestepping their claim that the 2000 ingredients
list displayed on the company Web site was current, McGhee thought he was
close to bringing down the windmill. After all, when later questioned, Seth
Moskowitz, a representative for RJ Reynolds, changed his earlier answer by
wriggling into a statement that 4-hydroxybutanoic acid lactone was no
longer on their ingredients list and hadn't been since prior to 2001. He
went on to emphasize that when it was an ingredient it was used in a
minimal amount as a flavoring additive in only one part per million or less.

For all McGhee's digging, it was SN&R's fact-checking that finally took the
wind out of his sails. It turns out that cigarette additives are grouped
with food additives on the Generally Recognized as Safe list. All additives
to products intended for human consumption must get the FDA stamp of
approval and are placed on this list.

And right there, in black and white, was 4-hydroxybutanoic acid lactone.
Even though slugging down capfuls to get high is illegal, FDA spokeswoman
Laura Bradbard said the approval as a food product has to do with the
"amount and purpose of the use."

She claims GBL exists naturally in some foods and in our bodies, "just not
in quantities that are seen in illegal use."

The fact is, as long as it's used in small amounts, GBL is OK by the FDA
for use as a flavoring additive in things like crackers, sodas and in
cigarettes. Nathan Barakin, a spokesman for Attorney General Lockyer,
agrees that both the content and context makes the difference, but adds a
flair of bureaucratic mysticism by saying that this was a "very complicated
area."

Is it OK for people to walk down the street with a container of GBL in
their pockets that they plan to add to dinner? According to both Bradbard
and Barakin, the answer is no. But if you plan to smoke that cigarette
after dinner, don't look for the feds to step in for the bust.

The fact that GBL is on the Generally Recognized as Safe list as a food
additive is the answer to Joe McGhee's question. However, for McGhee, the
windmill still stands, waving him on. It never ends. The answer only raises
new questions. Like why isn't it being used medicinally? He argues that
with low side effects and addiction forming only at high levels of
consumption, GBL is a viable alternative to many prescription drugs.

Looking at the list of acceptable food additives, he said, "according to
this it is OK to possess GBL, in contradiction to the controlled substances
list that says you can't."

He looks at the list again and again. He shakes his head, not so much angry
that GBL is on it but that a drug that he thinks could have therapeutic use
as a mild sedative and muscle relaxant is denied to so many people in favor
of prescription drugs.

"I'm on a prescription, for insomnia," he says quietly, still disbelieving.
"If I could take this instead, I would. And according to this," he holds up
the list, with 4-hydroxybutanioc acid lactone highlighted in yellow before
finishing his sentence, "it would be all right. But if I get caught on the
street with it, I go to jail. It just doesn't make sense."

And perhaps for people like Joe McGhee, it never will.