By Christopher Quinn, 1999 Cox News Service
ATLANTA -- It is labeled as a solvent and sold by the shot in
some bars.
Some people get it at vitamin and health food stores.
You don't have to be 21 to buy it, but it packs a wallop that
leaves an estimated five to 10 people a day in Atlanta emergency
rooms, many of them comatose.
When an Alpharetta, Ga., teenager overdosed on gamma
hydroxybutyrate, or GHB, recently, it sparked an investigation into
the drug's availability that is still continuing.
The Food and Drug Administration banned uncontrolled sales of
GHB in 1990, but sellers have found ways around the law. Some sell
the ingredients to make the easily formulated drug. Others sell
slightly altered legal chemical compounds, called GBL, BD or
2(3H)-Furanone di-hydro.
Dr. Robert J. Geller, the medical director of the Georgia Poison
Center, said that the active ingredients in those products turn
into GHB once ingested. They give the drinker the same euphoric
effects that make the drug popular among the rave party set and
teenagers.
Those products are legally sold as solvents labeled with
healthful sounding names such as Vigorate, Enliven or Revivarant.
The only thing standing between the distributors of those
products and FDA control is the thin paper label pasted onto the
front of the bottles. The FDA can only step in if the products are
sold or advertised for human consumption. Then it can fine or shut
down the distributors.
John Taylor, a senior advisor for regulatory policy at the FDA,
said distributors know the FDA is watching.
``We have watched the labeling change based on the fact that the
industry is under a great deal of scrutiny.''
Bobbie and Bill Johnson of Alpharetta had never heard of GHB or
its related compounds until some friends of their 17-year-old
daughter Kelly brought her home unconscious last month.
Their frightened questions about what had left their daughter
slumped in the seat of a car brought replies that may as well have
been in a foreign language. She and some of her friends drank from
a bottle of something called Vigorate. The bottle's label does not
have a manufacturers name on it.
``They said it was something they got at a health food store for
sleep deprivation,'' Bobbie Johnson said.
One of the teenagers who brought Kelly home later told police
they drank it because a friends said it would get them high.
The Johnsons tried to wake Kelly, but she was unresponsive.
Bobbie Johnson dialed 911 and waited.
Bill Johnson said there are no words to describe such a helpless
feeling of being unable to help his unconscious daughter.
Shortly after paramedics arrived, Kelly's breathing slowed to a
dangerous level, a typical effect of an overdose. Paramedics put
her on a gurney, gave her oxygen and took her to a hospital.
The paramedics told Bobbie Johnson they see it all the time. If
Kelly reacted like most to the overdose, she would wake up in a few
hours. She did.
Others have not been so lucky.
The FDA says more than 40 people have died from the effects of
the drug since the 1980s, including Michael Tiedemann in Florida
last year. Tiedemann, a 15-year-old honor roll student from Fort
Pierce, fell unconscious after taking GHB. He suffocated on his own
vomit.
Dr. William McAlvany, an emergency room doctor at Atlanta's
Northside Hospital, said vomiting is a common side effect of the
drug. GHB can also depress breathing rates to dangerous levels,
which can starve the brain of oxygen.
It is not unusual for him to see two to three cases a night.
Most are in their teens or 20s. Many come from bars, where they
have mixed GHB-based products with other drugs or drinking, which
makes the effects more potent and unpredictable, he said.
Lt. J.C. Moore of the Fulton County police said, ``It's a deadly
game when you mix it with alcohol.''
When the FDA studied 32 cases of GHB related deaths, it found 24
of the dead had also been drinking or had taken other drugs.
Moore and his squad have seen the drug mostly at dance clubs
among the teenage and college crowd. He also is familiar with the
legal substances that people buy to drink and said his officers are
powerless to stop the abuse.
McAlvany said, ``It's amazing to me that this stuff is sold
casually all over the country.''
Because of the drug's ability to render a person comatose, there
have also been cases of it being used as a date rape drug, he said.
Geller said that no one keeps reliable statistics on overdoses
because the products are not controlled substances. Some doctors
report them, others don't. He has some reports and estimated that
five to 10 people a day in Atlanta overdose.
Johnson said her relief at Kelly's recovery turned to
exasperation at the teenagers and fury that they were able to get
the Vigorate. She does not understand why those products are not
regulated.
Taylor said whether the sale is legal depends on how the product
is marketed. If a store clerk tells someone about its use to get
high, that is an illegal use, he said.
The FDA has begun to take some distributors to court, and there
is a bill in congress that will bring the products under FDA
control despite their labels.
The Johnson case attracted the attention of the Alpharetta
police.
Capt. Charles Fannon said that an undercover officer has visited
local stores and bought some of the solvents. The officer has asked
at the stores about drinking the substances and received advice, he
said. He said the investigation is not complete but he expects
arrests.
The undercover officer said the products containing the drugs
are usually kept out of sight and a person has to ask for them.
Taylor said that the danger of drinking such products may be
lost on some because they are uncontrolled substances.
``In the minds of kids, I suspect that there is a perception
that a controlled substance is more serious than an non-controlled
one, even though at the end of the day, if it's scheduled or not,
it poses the same exact risk.''
