The Truth Behind the drug GHB
Gamma hydroxybutyric acid, or GHB, was available in health food stores until 1990. Weight lifters used it to bulk up, but the FDA pulled it from shelves when it began to be used for a deadly high. Since 1990, it has been linked with around 45 deaths and 5,500 emergency room overdoses. Here is the truth behind GHB and what you need to know to protect your children.
Nora Gibbons is on a mission to educate parents about the drug GHB. She’s trying to keep them from experiencing what she went through with her daughter.
Nora says, “I grieved at first. I felt like I lost my daughter.” Her daughter, who did not want to be interviewed, was caught up in the all-night rave scene and the drug GHB. Looking back, Nora realizes she missed the signs.
“Her whole personality changed. It was not sudden. It was gradual,” says Nora.
Neurologist Michael Okun, M.D., of the University of Florida Brain Institute in Gainesville, says, “These are the sorts of things that should set parents off and cue them that there may be something going on.”
Lack of concentration, social isolation and a drop in school performance can also be signs.
Education is vital. Their major concern is that people think it’s safe.
Doering explains, “I’ve heard people say all the time, ‘It’s just a vitamin, or it’s just an amino acid, it couldn’t possibly hurt you.'”
At high doses, GHB sends a message to the brain not to breathe. “It doesn’t take long for you to develop irreversible brain damage, or if it’s a long enough period of time, death could ensue,” says Doering.
Nora is lucky. Her daughter is now recovering. “Just in the car tonight she said, ‘I’m so glad I’m not in this,'” says Nora.
Nora hopes to educate others before their child falls victim to the drug.
Dr. Okun adds while many people choose to use GHB, others get it unknowingly. He advises people to avoid drinking out of anybody’s glass at a club and to avoid taking a drink unless you see it being poured from a bottle or tap. For more information on GHB and club drugs, contact the National Institute of Drug Abuse at www.nida.nih.gov.
Source: Ivanhoe News
