GHB
The Date Rape Drug
What is it?
GHB has been used in a medical setting as a general anesthetic, to treat conditions such as insomnia, clinical depression, cataplexy, narcolepsy, and alcoholism, and to improve athletic performance.
What it is being used for nowadays...
GHB is a colorless, odorless, and usually salty liquid that causes the user to have weakened response time. This is used at clubs, parties, events, any place that may have a set of alcoholic drinks. Abusers of this drug do not normally intake it themselves, but place the substance into their victims beverage, placing them into a coma for a short time.
The Side Effects:
Rapid unconsciousness at doses above 3500 mg, and doses over 7000 mg often cause life-threatening respiratory depression, bradycardia and cardiac arrest. Disrupts the normal balance of brain circuits that control rewards, memory and cognition.
Treatment
Being treated for this is available and the process is like any other rehab center. You are interviewed, scheduled, and proceeding after you are helped on your issues.
Bans and Laws
In the United States, it was placed on Schedule 1 of the Controlled Substances Act in March 2000. But when sold as sodium oxybate, it is considered a Schedule 3 substance with Schedule 1 trafficking penalties. And then on the 20th of March in 2001, the Commission on Narcotic Drugs placed GHB in Schedule 4 of the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances. The UK placed GHB under Class C in June 2003, moving it from Schedule 4 to Schedule 2 to comply with UN recommendations. And in Hong Kong, GHB is regulated under Schedule 1 of Hong Kong’s Chapter 134 Dangerous Drugs Ordinance, and use is punishable by death.