Drplatypus --
While I respect the fact that you are obviously an educated individual, I must point out that you have not factored in the correlation of rising GHB/GBL/BDO overdoses and deaths with the criminalization of the substances in question.
Surely you can see that not only does this result in the likelhood of a contaminated substance being ingested, it also certainly results in a nebulous collection of batches that have varying potencies.
Factor this with the lack of general knowledge about GHB andits pre/postcursors, and of course there will be a rising number of 'incidents'.
GHB is non-toxic, period. This is bourne out by over thirty years of study and citings in a plethora af medical journals. When certain politicians needed electing, GHB suddenly got toxic.
Also, there has yet to be a single incident of a GHB induced death actually proven wherein GHB was the ONLY substance ingested. In every single reference that someone has cited to me, (certainly I cannot claim to know of all of them, so please do not mistake me for a charlatan), I researched and discovered that there was either a history of drug use in general or absolute knowledge of other drugs being utized simultaneously with the GHB.
The eleven exceptions to that were all citings involving GHB that was sold on the street. Let's not forget that bathtub chemists aren't always interested in clean drugs, and there is a very very good chance that out of all of the thousands of batches of GHB being made there must certainly be some that re not properly executed, and either contain harmful contaminates such as heavy metals and trace elements, or even worse, have an improper pH.
Moreover, GBL and BDO are commonly sold as GHB, and most of these kids would have no way of discerning between these substances. They use phrases like "capful" to describe amounts dosed, and "if it tastes like ass its GBL...", and so on. Not exactly precise, if you get my meaning here.
Furthermore, most kids are simply not going to admit to any drugs that they don't have to. They are afraid of going to jail, so when they take their friends in they simply say that GHB was the only drug present in order to avoid further investigation. Naturally, the media is happy to gobble that up without verifying or investigating, since such stories fit nicely into the present mold of GHB hysteria that is so prevalent in the states.
Curious. I've used GHB for over a decade. Many of my friends have, too. None of us got addicted. NONE. Why? Because we understand the mechanism of metabolization, and so does the medical field. It is simply an economic decision to let the myth of GHB toxicity linger, and grow, and grow, and grow...
The metabolites of GHB are CO2 and water. Please explain to me where the problem lies.
As far as overdosing. There are several cases on record where people ingested over 20 grams in one shot and lived to tell about it. One man ingested 75 grams and lived, no problem. As I stated above, the real risk is vomiting and suffocating. Breathing can be dramatically slowed, but there is a built in mechanism wherein the cell is protected from oxygen starvation whilst in the presence of GHB. In fact, GHB levels are increased in the body when a person falls into cold water. All those stories, those 'mysteries' about how a child survived forty five minutes underwater? GHB is the likely answer.
GBL is not organ specific carcinogenic, either. I know this because I have tested my blood for years and years and years. I understand that there have supposedly been deaths from GHB withdrawals, but this just simply is not true.
Look carefully at the reports. The guy who died from this 'withdrawal' in the hospital on day twelve had pnemonia, as well as a plethora of the wrong chemicals pumped into him at the hospital. See, dopamine degrades into adrenaline, among other things, and this causes a terrifying anxiety that could be called a withdrawal.
But this can be avoided altogether if one simply does not allow the dopamine to build up to begin with. How? Well, after six hours all GHB is out of the body , so by waiting eight hours between doses, or in other words, dosing only at night, this will never be a problem.
The problem arises when users dose as soon as they feel 'normal'. This can occur two hours, even sooner, after dosing. Of course the dopamine has not yet cleared from the previous dose, so a larger dose is need to obtain the same effect as the previous. This masquerades as tolerance. This problem is horribly exacerbated with GBL, because the conversion of GBL to GHB requires a hydroxide ion from the blood, and over a short period of time with frequent dosing, blood acidosis sets in. To make things even worse, GBL leeches potassium from the body.
So here you have a kid who has dosed GBL for a couple, three weeks, every day, then stops. The adrenaline kicks in and he gets nervous, thinks he needs a 'capful'. And all of you doctors without a comprehensive understanding of how to ameliorate his condition are perfectly willing to spew the drivel that you have posted here to said kid, and you tell him he is addicted, thereby reinforcing the myths and spreading the ignorance, which ultimately leads to stricter laws and finally, more undergound (and therefore less pure) GBL and GHB. And that, my friend, is the problem as I see it.
Solution?
Education, plain and simple. I have helped several of my colleagues online who were in what they deemed to be a horrific addiction to GBL wean themselves off by giving them FACTS, not horror stories and guesses. Not only that, I myself have managed the substance off and on for years.
My most recent blood test whilst on GBL for eight months straight, every single day, showed a blood profile so clean my doctor took a second draw because he knew I was using GBL. He argued until his lips were blue that my liver would fail if I continued. And yet, there the values were...enzymes 31. GGT right on target, kidney function BETTER than normal, and I use steroids on top of it all.
Not to mention MDMA.
So lets get our facts straight about GHB before we go and start talking about all these deaths that we just KNOW are from GHB alone.
Can it happen? Of course. But thirty years of research shows that the safety margin of GHB is 100:1, whereas Tylenol is 9:1. Liver failure from APAP is prevalent, but there is not a single case yet documented of liver failure from GHB or GBL. And yes, I know of those cited, but again, where is the source substance? Nowhere, so its purity could not be tested, could it? Nope.
And why weren't there any of these overdoses prior to 1990? Hell, GHB and GBL have been recreationally used since the seventies.
I'll answer that one for you, too. MDMA became prevalent, and MDMA impairs kidney and liver function. GHB is hygroscopic. MDMA makes one feel like they are not as impacted as they might really be by GHB, and again, by now we are dealing with GHB made in kitchen sinks.
More stuff -- GBL converts to GHB spontaneously in the presence of water, and it is a reverse reaction as well. So any liquid GHB will have a small amount of GBL in it after a short time because of this. Which is why you hear people say things like "It was from the same batch, but this time the same dose nearly killed me!" Nope. What happened was that person got to the bottom of their batch where the heavier GBL settled, and since GBL is 1.6 times as potent as GHB on a mg for mg basis due to increased bioavailability, WHAMMO! That capful turns into a cap and a half.
Solution?
Keep your GHB powedered. Which, of course, is what Xyrem is. Powdered GHB. That way the dose can be exactly controlled and there will never be a pH problem or a conversion to GBL over time.
See how the pharmaceutical industry so easily capitalizes on our ignorance? You, as a doctor, see kids come in, hear about GHB, think you understand what you are witnessing, and then go and tell it on the mountain. Since you're a doctor, people listen. They scare. They vote. Then said politician awards the patent of a FOOD (yes, GHB is a food, people, not a drug) to a pharmaceutical company and simultaneously schedules it 1 and 3. This totally ignores the 14th ammendment, not to mention the Bill of Rights, wherein our government is specifically told that section 8 outlines the areas that may be governed, and guess what? Food consumption is NOT EVEN MENTIONED.
See, we tried illegalization before. Back around 1920. It was called the Volstead Act and it gave us Al Capone. You want to tell me alcohol is safer than GHB?
So the second time around the horn we recognize, as a business, that the most commonly prescribed meds are sleep meds, anti-anxiety meds, and sexual aids.
GHB addresses, successfully, ALL of these areas. And we can't have all those government dollars wasted on all those 'safe' drugs like dyphenhydramine, doxylamine succinate, vioxx, etc., when there exists a cheap, readily available food that solves all of those problems now, can we?
Nope.
So let's find ourselves a hysterical mother who cannot accept the fact that her daughter drank and smoked weed and took X and then added GHB. We parade her tear streaked face all over America and tout the horrors of this terrible poison that has been around for forty years, but suddenly is lethal. Clinton declares an emergency and circumvents Congress altogether -- that's how bad this drug GHB is, see. It's an epidemic. I mean, can't you see the mother's tears? Surely it was GHB! She KNOWS her daughter!
BTW, since the passage of the laws, Hillary Farias' parents have crusaded against the exploitation because they have become aware of the fact that they were duped, just like you have been.
GHB isn't the problem, my friend.
Ignorance is.