GHB: Deceptive, deadly and often overlooked
Christine Vendel, MCT
Issue date: 9/2/09 Section: News
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Inexplicably, the liquid was not frozen. Middleton sniffed the contents. No odor.
"What in the world?" she thought.
Her curiosity led her to the Internet. Put in "odorless liquid" and "Gatorade bottle" and up pops gamma hydroxybutyrate, a powerful central nervous system depressant.
GHB seemed like the least of her daughter's problems. But as it turned out, GHB was the root of her problems.
Most people fear GHB as a "date rape" drug. But this deceptively dangerous liquid has grown in popularity in recent years with partiers, athletes and others who take it deliberately, sometimes with deadly consequences.
Partiers sip it to get high. A capful is akin to drinking five beers in five minutes with a little PCP on top, experts say. But drink too much and you may never wake up.
Bodybuilders and athletes use it as an alternative to steroids, thinking it makes them bigger and stronger. But it can send regular users into psychosis and ruin their bodies.
Police departments haven't routinely tested for GHB. But when Kansas City investigators busted a GHB lab in June in a River Market loft, they realized this drug may be a bigger player in the local drug scene than they thought. They recovered nearly a liter of GHB, enough for hundreds of doses.
GHB-related overdoses have killed at least three people in the area in recent years, including a 28-year-old Northland man in October.
Nationally, one expert identified 200 GHB-related deaths across the country from 1995 to 2005, but the real numbers could be much higher because police, hospitals and medical examiners don't routinely check for it.
People who supply GHB at rave parties, the bar scene or the gym contend it is harmless. But that's not true, said Trinka Porrata, a leading international GHB expert and retired Los Angeles police detective.
"GHB addiction is the single toughest-most prolonged and most dangerous-of all drug withdrawals," said Porrata, who runs a nonprofit organization called Project GHB.
Even Middleton's daughter, Alina Bostic, seemed to realize that GHB, or G as it is known among users, had taken over her life.
Bostic told her mother in September 2007: "I think it was the G that really messed me up."
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