GHB
Pronunciation:jee-eightch-bee
Chemical Abstracts Service Registry Number:591-81-1. (Sodium salt form 502-
85-2)
Formal Names: 4-Hydroxybutanoic Acid, Gamma Hydroxybutyrate, Gamma-
Hydroxybutyric Acid, Sodium Oxybate, Sodium Oxybutyrate
Informal Names:Blue Verve, Cherry Menth, Cherry Meth, Easy Lay, Everclear, EZ
Lay, Fantasy, G, Gamma Oh, GBH, Georgia Home Boy, Ghana Marijuana, Gib,
Goop, Great Hormones at Bedtime, Grievous Bodily Harm, G-Riffick, Growth
Hormone Booster, Jib, Jib Gamma, Lemons, Liquid E, Liquid Ecstasy, Liquid X,
Max (combination with amphetamines), Mickey Finn Special, Natural Sleep-
500, Nature’s Quaalude, Organic Quaalude, Oxy-Sleep, Poor Man’s Heroin,
Salty Water, Soap, Scoop, Somatomax, Somsanit, Vita-G, Water, Wolfies,
Zonked
Type:Depressant.Seepage 19
Federal Schedule Listing:Schedule I (DEA no. 2010)
USA Availability:Illegal to possess
Pregnancy Category:None
Uses.Although GHB is commercially manufactured, it is also produced
within the bodies of mammals where it may promote hibernation and help
the brain to withstand deficient oxygen supply. The substance was once
widely available as a nutritional supplement in health food stores. People
consumed it in hopes that the product would promote fat reduction and mus-
cle development. Human experiments confirm that the drug can increase the
body’s levels of human growth hormone while the substance is circulating in
the bloodstream, but the studies did not last long enough to show whether
this GHB effect built muscles or reduced fat. The hope for muscle development
has been tested in experiments with rats and dogs, but without success; the
drug failed to increase the animals’ growth hormone levels.
Where this drug is legal, its main medical use is for anesthesia and for
treating drug abuse patients. It has been used experimentally to study epi-
lepsy, to reduce damage from exposure to nuclear radiation, and to treat fi-
bromyalgia (a rheumatic disease causing weariness, muscle pain, and stiff
joints). Some efforts to help schizophrenics with the substance have been suc-
cessful; some have not. Experiments with hamsters indicate the drug may