On a recent trip to Australia the newspaper headlines caught my eye. It read “$5.00 drug that could cost your life!” Intrigued by this dramatic statement I read about a street drug that I was not familiar with (not that I am speaking from first hand experience of course!), and that had caused over 300 overdoses in Adelaide alone over the past 3 years and in a recent Sydney epidemic 76% of patients admitted required life support ventilators (in Bali this means you would probably die!). This nasty piece of work is also responsible for inducing coma like states providing the opportunity for rape or theft. The most frightening thing is that it so cheap and easy to make. If gammahydroxybutyrate or GHB is available in Australia, then it must be available here.
What is GHB/GBH ?
GHB or as it is often known ‘GBH (Grievous Bodily Harm)’, ‘blue nitro’, ‘liquid ecstasy’, or ‘fantasy’, is an anaestheticused for its sedating rather than painkilling effects. It is a colourless, odourless, salty tasting liquid that comes in small bottles. The potency varies, since it will be home made to various consistencies. Ingredients include solvents and caustic soda. It is most commonly swallowed although rarely it is injected. GHB is also present in the body in small amounts and in certain types of ripe fruits such as guava, but before you go out and start planting guava trees I should tell you that you would need to eat about 50kg of fruit to get any mind blowing effects from the guava!
Effects of GHB.
GHB’s trip has been described as being “happily drunk multiplied by a thousand times!” Inhibitions are lowered, leading to a quirky calm feeling, or sometimes to a darker mood. At higher doses it causes sedation, nausea, muscle stiffness, confusions, convulsions and some cases coma and respiratory collapse. One man described how he ‘felt like I was drifting away in my own little bubble of consciousness but my friends said I was puking and out of it’.
Effects and risks:
The effects of GHB are noticeable between 10 minutes and 1 hour and have been reported as lasting a day or longer. Like alcohol, in small doses at first, it will lower inhibitions, leading to euphoria and increased sexual desire. High doses produce strong sedative effects including confusion, nausea, muscle stiffness, possible respiratory collapse or coma. One of the dangers of taking GHB is that the concentration of the drug is unknown; meaning the risk of overdose is increased significantly. Clearly, any dangers will be enhanced if GHB is mixed with other ‘downer’ drugs. Body builders have also been known to use the drug, as it is supposed to promote slow-wave sleep, which is when muscle-building growth hormones are secreted by the body.
It is not known whether the drug causes tolerance, psychological or physical dependence, although all three may be likely in some individuals. There is also no information on the drug’s long term effects on physical and emotional well-being.
When I was researching this article I came across a post by a paramedic in Mexico, and as I have so often seen what this man describes, I thought I would like to share it with you… “As a paramedic I get paid whether I am on a response (request for help) or not. Our shifts are mostly 24 hours and we like to sleep all night!!! The facts are, drugs can kill you. Maybe you choked on your own vomit as your body rejected the substance. None of your friends noticed this as they left you in a corner to “sleep it off!” Maybe your heart stopped beating or your brain stopped sending the signal to your respiratory muscles and diaphragm to contract and you stopped breathing. Maybe we get there with enough time to correct the problems, maybe not.
I leave the hospital after we transport you and go back to the station to sleep or eat or watch TV. You stay there and get intubated (a tube placed into your lungs) and another tube into your stomach down your throat and another one in your veins. That is, if we have not done it already while you lay on the side of the road, or in the bathroom of the club you were at, or in an alley lying on the ground with the “trash.”
Maybe you were sexually assaulted by males or females or both!!! TRUST ME, I have seen it many times. As one of the MD’s stated to me on one occasion after a transport to the ER, “I wonder what the “old man” would say now if he saw his daughter here.” This, after we picked her up unconscious with her skirt and underpants down to her ankles at the border of TJ / San Diego at 3:30 in the morning. She was found in an alley behind a Mexican bar. She was 20 years old. She did not remember any of it, she was comatose on nitro, which was most likely to her benefit!!!
Maybe you get discharged from the E.R., maybe not. Maybe you get transported to the morgue later on. Or, maybe we did not even transport you because you were “coded!” in the field... PRONOUNCED! (11-44), otherwise known as D.O.A. (Dead On Arrival) or DEAD at scene!!!
We “unloaded our drug box” and skills on you and our efforts were in vain. We covered you up with a “yellow disposable blanket” and cleaned up our ambulance and restocked our equipment. Hopefully we did not get stuck with one of your needles or get hurt while trying to help you. We left you there with the police officers until the coroner came to get you and take you to the morgue. Then, your family came to see you and cried.
We went back to our station, watched TV, and went to sleep, hopefully. Then on our day off we go to the ball game with our family or maybe surfing with our friends...” As I read this article I thought about the phone calls that I had made in the past, telling parents that their sons or daughters would be coming home in a wooden box. How easy do you think that is to do when the cause of death is a cheap high? I thought about the girls that had come to me after being sexually assaulted and remembering nothing after just half a glass of bourbon and coke in a bar, and I remember my own daughter’s grief when her friend just went to sleep one night and never woke up. Such a senseless waste, will it ever stop?
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Kim Patra is a qualified Registered Nurse and Midwife that has been living and working in Bali for almost twenty years. She now runs her own private practice and medical referral service from her Kuta office. Kim is happy to discuss any health concerns with you and she may be contacted via e-mail at info@chcbali.com”.
