gamma-Hydroxybutyric Acid - Recreational Use

Recreational Use

GHB is a CNS depressant used as an intoxicant. It has many street names, including "Georgia Home Boy", "Juice", "Liquid Ecstasy", "Mils", "G", "Liquid X", and "Liquid G", as well as "Fantasy" and the reordered initialism GBH (abbreviation of grievous bodily harm in English law). Its effects have been described anecdotally as comparable with alcohol and ecstasy use, such as euphoria, disinhibition, enhanced sensuality and empathogenesis. At higher doses, GHB may induce nausea, dizziness, drowsiness, agitation, visual disturbances, depressed breathing, amnesia, unconsciousness, and death. The effects of GHB can last from 1.5 to 3 hours, or even longer if large doses have been consumed. Consuming GHB with alcohol is dangerous as it can lead to vomiting in combination with unrouseable sleep, a potentially lethal combination.

In general, the doses used recreationally are between 500 mg and 3,000 mg. When used as a recreational drug, GHB may be found as the sodium or potassium salt, which is a white crystalline powder, or as GHB salt dissolved in water to form a clear solution. The sodium salt of GHB has a salty taste. Other salt forms such as calcium GHB and magnesium GHB have also been reported, but the sodium salt is by far the most common.

Some chemicals convert to GHB in the stomach and blood stream. GBL, or gamma-butyrolactone, is one such prodrug. Other prodrugs include 1,4-butanediol. There may be additional toxicity concerns with these precursors. 1,4-B and GBL are normally found as pure liquids, although they may be mixed with other more harmful solvents when intended for industrial use, e.g., as paint stripper or varnish thinner.

GHB can be easily manufactured at home with very little knowledge of chemistry, as it only involves the mixing of its two precursors, GBL and an alkali hydroxide (such as sodium hydroxide) to form the resulting GHB salt. Due to the ease of manufacture and the availability of its precursors, its production is not done in relatively few illicit laboratories like most other synthetic drugs, but in private homes by low level producers instead. While available as a prescription for rare and severe forms of sleep disorders such as narcolepsy in some other countries, notably most of Europe, GHB was banned (in the U.S.) by the FDA in 1990. However, on 17 July 2002, GHB was approved for treatment of cataplexy, often associated with narcolepsy. GHB is "colourless and odorless".