Drug educators and law enforcement officials say there is a window of opportunity for GHB, or gamma hydroxybutyrate, to become more available.
The drug feared by women and coveted by clubgoers was approved as Xyrem on Wednesday by the Food and Drug Administration to treat narcolepsy.
“Automatically people think when something is FDA approved, it’s safe,” drug educator Trinka Porrata said. “And that just isn’t true in this case.”
Porrata serves as an educator for Designer Drugs, a national drug awareness group.
Having a container that makes it appear as if the drug is legal will make it harder for officers to enforce laws against GHB, Porrata said.
Giving people better access to the commonly known “date rape” drug could be putting some people in danger, MSU police Sgt. Randy Holton said.
“If people have a prescription, then it’s legal and there’s nothing you can do,” he said.
In 1999, 15-year-old Samantha Reid of Rockwood died after GHB was slipped into her drink at a movie. She was taken to the hospital with no vital signs and died after 18 hours on life support.
While there have been no known fatalities linked to the drug at MSU, university officials have warned students about its dangers
Because it’s virtually undetectable in drug tests and can cause short-term memory loss, the drug has often been used to knock out victims of crimes. Porrata said the concern with legalizing this drug for medical use is that it “sends out a bad message.”
There also may be a question of why the drug was approved to begin with.
Porrata said GHB only has a 70-percent effective rate, meanwhile Prozac treats narcolepsy with more than 90-percent reliance.
The FDA conducted two controlled clinical trials. “It’s shocking how little research they did,” Porrata said. “We hoped that they wouldn’t approve it because of its high risk factors.”
GHB is addictive and can be deadly, it has been known to flourish in clubs as a recreational drug and in sports as an alternative to steroids, Porrata said.
Because of the concerns of people like Porrata, the FDA has designed a risk management program to ensure the prescribed GHB does not fall into the wrong hands. The program includes patient and physician education as well as limited distribution.
The FDA also is requiring users to be registered and kept under surveillance. A medication guide will inform them of proper use and disposal of the drug, and side effects, which could include confusion, dizziness, vomiting and sleepwalking.
Misuse or improper distribution of the drug by patients or physicians could result in a jail sentence, but that doesn’t comfort some, like Lansing resident Todd Heywood, who volunteers for anti-drug organizations.
“There’s this thought process in the American mind-set that if the FDA approves it, it’s safe,” he said. “This is the drug that gets you stoned one day and kills you the next.”
