|
Cops Chase Drugs on the Internet |
|
|
Written by Jim Krane
|
|
Tuesday, 21 December 1999 |
|
Page 3 of 5
CERTAIN DRUGS THRIVE
In dozens of arrests, Erickson has seized everything from heroin to crack cocaine to marijuana. But the majority of online drug trafficking involves mind-altering chemical concoctions like ecstasy, rohypnol and GHB.
GHB is the bastard child of the Internet, said Trinka Porrata, a retired Los Angeles narcotics detective now working as a consultant on drug issues. No drug has spread so extensively, so rapidly by the Internet than GHB.
For now, GHB and its myriad chemical variants exist in a legal netherworld. Banned by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 29 states have yet to classify the clear liquid developed as a floor-cleaning solvent as an illegal narcotic. Penalties for sale and use remain light in many places, said Porrata.
I could parachute from a plane into any community in the country, and with an Internet connection and a few hours time, I could show you GHB in that community, said Porrata. Its way over our heads.
Police have executed almost a dozen search warrants on GHB dealers who sell on the Internet, said Sharon Kurn, an attorney with the U.S. Justice Departments Office of Consumer Litigation.
Basically, anyone with a credit card or money order can order it online and get a box in the mail with the ingredients for GHB, said Kurn.
Most of the sales, Kurn said, comprised kits containing the drugs two base chemicals that need to be mixed to create GHB. Kurn said she plans to charge the sellers under FDA statutes. The investigations are still active.
In Las Vegas last March, police arrested David Linder, 45, for allegedly selling GHB from a Web site and shipping it cross-country by mail.
Las Vegas narcotics Detective Vince Hartung said Linder stored some 200 gallons of chemicals that, when mixed, create GHB. At the normal price of $5 per teaspoonful, Linders drug stock was worth more than $1 million.
Hartung said Linder also is being investigated in connection with the GHB overdose of a 14-year-old girl in San Diego. Linder pleaded not guilty to charges of high-level trafficking and manufacture of a controlled substance, said Hartung. Police are now seeking a grand jury indictment. In Nevada, GHB is an illegal narcotic with penalties on par with heroin or cocaine.
STILL FOR SALE OPENLY
Despite the legal action, a simple Internet search turned up several sellers of GHB and GHB alternatives with names like RejuvNite, RenewTrient, ReActive and Blue Nitro. A South African site claimed to sell actual GHB but would not ship to the United States.
Reckless warnings appeared on some of the sites, including this one: Unless drugs or alcohol have been taken with ReActive the only treatment necessary is to SLEEP IT OFF! A call for help may result in uninformed emergency medical personnel using expensive, unnecessary and potentially dangerous methods of arousal.
Porrata said such a misguided warning may have led to the 1998 GHB overdose death of Caleb Shortridge, 27, in California. Shortridge had mistakenly taken a lethal dose of GHB and died while his friends waited for him to sleep it off, refusing to call for an ambulance, Porrata said. About 100 Americans are known to have died from GHB overdoses, Kurn said.
|
