Date: December 24, 2002

Comments:

I know and have known many people that have come in contact with GHB. I know two people who have died from it and it is not anyone's fault most of the time. We all know that drug's are bad period, but we all choose to still take them. Some people like to live on the edge and you can tell them all day not to do something and they will still do it. Alcohol and nicotine are the most lethal and addicting drugs to our body, but they are legal! I have been in the hospital parking lot for someone who got sick on GHB and saw friends drinking it in the parking lot after everything that had just happened. My friend who got sick knew what may happen if he took too much, but no one thinks that it will happen to them. Most people know what they are taking-they just want to push the limit. Going snowmobiling on a frozen lake has it's dangers, but people still do it! My point is, people will die some day and it is tragic, but maybe it was there time and everything is okay-maybe not-no one has the answer.

City, State: Ga.
Date: December 23, 2002

Comments:

My nights used to be spent partying with my husband and friends. One of the 'new' drugs we had discovered was GHB, or its derivatives. I tried it a couple of times, and it was OK, but I preferred stimulants, the lifestyle was wearing thin on me, so I soon gave up all drug use. My husband did not. I became pregnant, and hoped that that would be the thing that convinced my husband to go straight. We had discussed what we expected from ourselves when faced with having a family many years before, and both of us acknowledged that there wouldn't be room in our lives as parents for drugs any more. Unbeknownst to me, my husband's occasional flirtation with GHB had escalated into constant use. There were nights I would lock my door (we had long since stopped sharing a room), afraid to come out because I could hear him pacing the house, screaming incoherently, hitting himself. Sometimes I would find him passed out (usually nude-sometimes outside), unwakeable, twitching in his own vomit. We fought a great deal -- on the rare occasions he came home. He had started hitting me sometimes, but the worry and emotional abuse were more demoralizing than getting my first black eye from the man who supposedly loved me.

I began to realize at this point (around the birth of our son), that his use was greater than I had originally thought, but there were times that nothing seemed amiss (it seems that he was incorporating more meth and coke into the mix to get through the day). Those were the times he would drive with us in the car. I had no idea he was high all the time, but apparently he was willing to risk all of our lives... Our son was such a sweet, well-behaved baby -- just as beautiful in temperament as he was to look at. I worried that this would soon change, as some of the things he witnessed at home, no child should ever see.

When he was about a year old, I became very ill and almost died. I spent some time in the hospital, and my mother took leave from her job so she could take care of the baby while my husband went to work. (found out later that he hadn't been going - he was out getting high). My mother spent a morning locked in the bedroom, witnessing one of his 'attacks'. She didn't want to worry me at the time, so she didn't tell me until later.

Our son turned a year old, and we were starting to get concerned because he still wasn't walking or talking, but everyone said not to worry. Besides, all babies have their own timetables for those sorts of things. He did start doing both eventually, but his speech was very lacking. He is three. He has called me "Mama" once. You see, my son is autistic. We, like most parents of autistic spectrum children, didn't see it coming until he was over two years old. Although the latest word is that 'they' think autism is genetic, no one can say for certain what causes it (it is a neurological disorder), and there is no cure. There are many schools of thought on autism's origins, and even more on how to 'treat' it. Either way, the future looks pretty bleak sometimes.

Now my nights are spent on the computer, researching autism, looking for funding, researching treatments, studying all I can about this disorder. The reason I am at this site is because I have been trying to educate myself as to the chemical processes of autism. From what I have read thus far, there are a lot of chemical similarities in an autistic brain and a brain that is dosed up on GHB (most especially the elevated serotonin/dopamine, and it appears to me that the two conditions have an effect on the same areas of the brain). I am fairly certain that there isn't any research out there involving these two things, and I am no doctor, but I would be very interested to hear a scientific point of view on this.

I think we have only begun to scratch the surface of what the long-term effects of GHB use are, regardless of whether its use could be linked to my child's disability. I would like to know how it affects the chemical makeup of both parents in reference to their unborn offspring. At this point, it isn't about placing blame for me - it's about finding a source, and then perhaps a way to help these people affected by autism. When other parents are wishing their kids would be quiet for a minute, all I want is to be able to have a conversation with mine, to hear his voice..

Incidentally, my husband and I are separated, as he has bounced from drug to drug, and our son deserves a better home than that of an addict and a victim. But make no mistake about it -- GHB was the beginning of the end. That stuff is Hell in a bottle. I have seen it help bring about the ruin my family, and one other friend of my husband's as well. Most important, it is not a 'get-out-of-jail-free card'!!! People who claim it's not addictive are either lying or don't know what they are talking about, and haven't been on their hands and knees at four in the morning cleaning their husband's vomit out from under their baby's crib. I watched GHB take a somewhat insecure (but then who isn't?), basically nice guy, and turn him into a raving soulless lunatic with no conscience, who can rationalize ANY act if it means staying high.

For those who consider using this drug: I beg you not to try it; some people use it and walk away, no harm done...but some don't walk away at all. Still others survive it, but will pay for it forever. And then there are the kids that you are probably too young to be thinking about, that you might want to have one day...is it worth risking all that? Believe me when I tell you - there is NO PAIN IN THE WORLD like wondering if something you did in a 'harmless' pursuit of fun may have caused your baby to suffer for all his life. What you do in your twenties can (and probably will) walk up and bite you on the ass in your thirties (or later..). You are not the only person you are risking when you do drugs, though. You risk the security of everyone who loves you -- even of those who aren't in your life yet! I didn't think about that kind of thing when I was younger (and did a lot of experimenting as a result), so I write this in the hopes that someone might consider what happened to us as a very real possibility of what could happen to them, and NOT DO GHB.

Name: Al
Date: December 09, 2002

Comments:

Hi, I am a college lecturer in the UK. I often see many of the youths acting strangely at all times of the day. I usually manage to gain the confidence of most of my students, and would say that around 80% of them say they are often using 'something'. When in a peer group situation, there is great rivalry for 'macho-I-dunnit-lots' oration. This disturbs me, but what disturbs me more, is that before this evening (9th Dec 2002) I had never heard of GHB (but had heard some of the other 80 nomas), and then I discovered that this group of drugs is NOT illegal, or even classified in the UK! What are we allowing people to do to our children, our future?