DRUG INQUIRY LEADS TO THE NET

Deputies Confiscate Man's Computer In Reynolds High Case

Forsyth County sheriff's detectives removed a computer from a house on
Brecknock Drive that could provide more details about how several Reynolds
High School students obtained a drug that sent two of them to the hospital.

On Tuesday, a 15-year-old girl and 17-year-old boy became incoherent at
school and were taken by ambulance to Wake Forest University Baptist
Medical Center.

Since then, investigators have determined that the two students took a drug
believed to be the depressant GHB or "Liquid Ecstasy," which they got from
a 17-year-old junior, Forsyth County Sheriff Ron Barker said.

The junior knows the 26-year-old man whose computer was confiscated, along
with other equipment that may have been used to buy drugs over the
Internet, Barker said. The man was not identified.

Agents with the State Bureau of Investigation who specialize in computer
crimes will analyze the equipment and its contents, he said. Blood samples
taken from the students who became sick also will be tested.

Investigators have also sent several ounces of the clear liquid to a lab in
Philadelphia, said Forsyth County District Attorney Tom Keith.

Detectives got the liquid from the student suspected of giving the drug to
the other teen-agers, Barker said.

Liquid Ecstasy, a so-called "club drug," is rising in popularity among
teen-agers and has been linked to an increased number of overdoses,
poisonings, date rapes and deaths, according to information from the
National Institute on Drug Abuse.

"A lot of these kids don't know what they are taking," Keith said. "This is
scary stuff."

The two who took the drug will be suspended for three days, said Stan
Elrod, the Reynolds High School principal. And the 17-year-old junior
suspected of distributing it could be suspended for a longer period or
expelled.

The investigation began Tuesday after school administrators were called to
a classroom about 10:30 a.m. because a ninth-grade girl became incoherent
and could not keep her eyes open, Elrod said.

"When we got to her she almost lost consciousness," he said.

After lunch, a junior boy was found nauseated and incoherent in a school
restroom.

"We couldn't talk to them, they were totally out of it," Elrod said. "I
mean, it was really scary."

Elrod said that both students had been released from the hospital.

Detectives are still investigating where the drugs came from. It is
possible that Web sites were used to buy the drugs, Barker said.

Elrod said that one of the 17-year-olds brought the drugs to a party Friday
night after he ordered them off the Internet from a company in England. The
boy told the principal he thought that it was a legal substance because it
was available online.

About 20 people were at the party, which was held at a Reynolds student's
house. Elrod said he wasn't sure whether the drugs were distributed there,
but he said he didn't believe that the substance was sold or passed on campus.

"The young people who consumed it brought it on campus themselves," he said.

Barker couldn't confirm that last night and said he couldn't say more
because of the investigation.

Trent Ward, a 16-year-old Reynolds student, was at the party. He said that
drugs are fairly common among some students at Reynolds.

But not Liquid Ecstasy.

"This is brand new," Ward said. "Nobody had heard of it, and all of a
sudden it was here."

Liquid Ecstasy is sold for about $5 a hit. A half-pint is $100, he said.

Winston-Salem narcotics detectives first encountered Ecstasy and other club
drugs, including GHB, about two years ago while raiding Rave parties, which
are frequented by middle-class teen-agers, said Sgt. David Lamb of the
Winston-Salem Police Department.

He said that taking a dose of GHB has the same effect as drinking a whole
bottle of liquor.

The drugs of choice in Winston-Salem still are marijuana, crack and
cocaine. But narcotics officers are seeing more club drugs, especially now
that they are trained to recognize them, Lamb said. People who sell and use
them "need to be treated no differently than people standing on a corner
selling crack," he said.

Barker said that no charges have been filed.

This case is particularly tricky because it is unclear whether the liquid,
which is still being tested, is illegal. Many of these new generation of
drugs are complicated substances that skirt the strict definitions in state
and federal drug laws.

"If it isn't a drug crime there may be some type of adulterated crime,"
Keith said. For example, there could be a misdemeanor charge in giving
someone something unlabeled knowing that the contents are dangerous.

Elrod said that awareness about Internet activity is key. "Parents have got
to talk to their kids and know what their kids are doing on the computers,"
he said. "The Internet is a wonderful thing, but it also creates a whole
new set of problems that we've never been exposed to."