GHB - Usage Trends
Usage Trends
The DEA's Drug Intelligence Brief titled "An Overview of Club Drugs" was published just prior to GHB's classification as a Schedule I substance. In it, the author writes that club drugs such as ecstasy, ketamine, Rohypnol, and GHB initially "gained popularity primarily due to the false perception that they [were] not as harmful, nor as addictive, as mainstream drugs such as heroin." (Entries on ecstasy, ketamine, Rohypnol, and heroin are available in this encyclopedia.)
Young Users
The increase in GHB use can also be traced to its price. At $5 to $10 per capful, it has been viewed by teens as a cheap alternative to ecstasy or speed. Typical GHB users and sellers are between eighteen and thirty years old. "Pulse Check" statistics from 2004 indicate that GHB and GBL purchases most often occur in club settings frequented by young people, such as raves, nightclubs, bars, and parties, or through Internet Web sites.
The Case That Captured the Nation's Attention
Carlson High School ninth-graders Samantha Reid and Melanie Sindone were best friends. They lived in a downriver city just south of Detroit, Michigan. On a Saturday night in January 1999, the girls joined up with two boys from school, Daniel Brayman and Nicholas Holtschlag. Both were seniors. (A third girl, Sindone's stepsister, went along as well.) The five teens reportedly cruised around in Holtschlag's van for a while. For lack of anything better to do, the seniors ended up driving the girls to the apartment of an older friend, twenty-five-year-old Erick Limmer, on Grosse Ile in Michigan. Another teen, Joshua Cole, was already there with Limmer.
Cigarettes, joints, and alcohol were all part of the mix that night, but the drug that led to tragedy was GHB. Apparently, the party on Grosse Ile was less exciting than everyone had hoped. The girls seemed very quiet, and the boys were looking for a way to liven things up. Three of the young men (excluding Limmer who was not in the room at the time) decided to slip some GHB into the girls' drinks. Reid was drinking a Mountain Dew and Sindone was having a screwdriver (orange juice and vodka). Limmer had purchased the GHB earlier. He was with Cole at the time of the sale and had told Cole not to touch it.
The girls did not know that the drinks had been spiked with a drug that could kill them. According to Detroit News writer Jodi S. Cohen, Sindone "remembers what it felt like as her body slowly went numb while she watched her friend slump down into a couch." Within minutes of consuming their GHB-laced drinks, the drug caused both girls to vomit and pass out.
Limmer was reportedly upset about the vomit stains on his rug and furniture. The girls were moved to the bathroom floor, where they continued to choke on and off. Sindone's stepsister did not become ill. Two of the boys headed out to a nearby store to pick up some carpet cleaning equipment. Hours went by, but the girls did not sleep off the effects of the GHB.
Emergency Care Too Late
It was not until 4:30 A.M. that the boys finally took Reid and Sindone to the hospital. The girls were both intubatedPutting a plastic tube into the lungs through the nose and throat, thus opening the airway of a person unable to breathe independently. and restrained. Sindone survived, but her best friend did not. Reid died of the complications that occurred after vomit entered her lungs.
At the time of Reid's death in early 1999, little was known about GHB. "When Grosse Ile detectives confronted Joshua Cole, … it became clear that he … didn't know he was experimenting with an unpredictable, potentially deadly substance," wrote Cohen. Michigan police officials had not been trained to recognize the symptoms of GHB poisoning, and hospital emergency room staffs had no way to test for it. In response to a lack of awareness about the drug, Reid's mother, Judi Clark, founded the Samantha Reid Foundation to help educate communities about the dangers of GHB. As noted in the Detroit News, Clark became determined to "warn the world about GHB." In remembering Reid, Clark read from one of her daughter's poems: "For I shall not go quietly into the night; / I shall succeed and no battle will be won until I have had my fight. / Harsh hammers and evil enemies look out, / I am on my way."
The Aftermath
A little more than a year after the incident, the four men stood trial for the death of Samantha Reid. The three teens—Cole, Brayman, and Holtschlag—were convicted of involuntary manslaughter and poisoning. Limmer was found guilty of being an accessory to manslaughter and poisoning. In March of 2000, the three younger men were sentenced to up to fifteen years in prison. Limmer received a lighter sentence of up to five years. Defense attorneys argued that the penalties were too stiff and appealed the decision.
Three years later, the Michigan State Court of Appeals threw out the manslaughter charges. According to the New York Times, "prosecutors vowed to appeal the ruling." In 2004 the case went before the Michigan Supreme Court and the manslaughter convictions were reinstated. As of mid-2005, three of the men were in their twenties, one in his thirties, and they remained in prison.
Law Stiffens in 2000
The key to surviving a GHB-related overdose is getting prompt medical treatment. Without help, victims of GHB poisoning may suffer brain damage due to an insufficient supply of oxygen, or they may stop breathing. The effects of the drug wear off relatively quickly, so with proper care the chances for recovery are good. "In the absence of complications," noted Pittman, many patients hospitalized for a GHB overdose "can be discharged within a few hours." Doctors suspect that if Reid had been taken to an emergency room as soon as she became ill, she might have survived.
The case was watched closely by authorities. In response to public outcry over Samantha Reid's death, Congress banned GHB in 2000. President Bill Clinton signed the Hillory J. Farias and Samantha Reid Date-Rape Drug Prohibition Act into law on February 18, 2000. The law also commemorates Farias, a seventeen-year-old high-school senior from La Porte, Texas, who died from a GHB overdose after someone slipped it into her soft drink.
At the time he signed the act into law, Clinton stated: "Making GHB a Schedule I controlled substance appropriately reflects the Congress' judgment that GHB has a high potential for abuse by sexual predators." He added, however, that the act would "not impede ongoing research into the potential legitimate use of this drug to treat the special needs of those suffering from narcolepsy."
Usage Reaches Its Peak
Drug experts believe that GHB use has already reached its peak in the United States. After a particularly high number of GHB-related illnesses reported in 2000, poison control centers and medical observers throughout the country noted a decline in both usage and overdose rates. The results of the 2004 Monitoring the Future (MTF) study were released to the public on December 21, 2004. Conducted by the University of Michigan (U of M), it is sponsored by research grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDAO). The authors of the study considered GHB among those drugs "holding steady" in use among students in the eighth, tenth, and twelfth grades.
The Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) tracks hospital emergency department (ED) visits caused by drug use. The growth in GHB-related ED visits skyrocketed in the middle and late 1990s. DAWN listed 20 GHB-induced ED visits in 1992, 56 in 1994, 1,282 in 1998, 2,973 in 1999, and 4,969 in 2000. After that, ED visits related to GHB began to fall, possibly due to the decreased availability of the drug after it became a Schedule I substance. In 2002, the number was down to 3,200. The latest statistics published as of mid-2005 were from the last two quarters of 2003. During those six months, 990 ED visits were reported for GHB poisoning. Approximately three out of every five people involved in GHB-related ED visits were between eighteen and twenty-five years old.
Join eNotes
Over 3,500 study guides, question and answer forums, literature criticism, reference content, and much more!
Navigate
