Hi Barry:
Thanks for the URL, I read it with great interest. Those of us who do drugs or know about drugs from past experience have a firm belief that the establishment is crazy. I didn't bring it up in my last post but ---
e.. Negative side-effects that occur especially when GHB is
> ingested with alcohol and signs that an overdose may have been taken are:
> dose-dependent drowsiness, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, amnesia, visual
> hallucinations, loss of consciousness, loss of reflexes, reduced blood
> pressure, decreased heart rate, hypnotic effects resembling petit- mal
> epilepsy, convulsions, severe respiratory depression, coma and death.
> Overdose requires emergency room care.
About the only negative effect they don't warn of was blindness. As your article stated, it is estimated that over 1 million clubbers a week use Ecstasy If those side effects or any portion of them were showing up in any statistically valid number - it would be known and published. Instead, after a weekend recreation tab of Ecstasy, they go back to work on Monday - as normal as can be.
Yet if you read the literature on prescription drugs, you find the medical professionals happily killing a large part of their client load with misprescription, overdose, and mixing prescriptions. Remember the great effort to inoculate key medical personnel for smallpox in case those nasty terrorists released bacteria into a city. Well, many of them are now suffering side effects and the program to inoculate many people has been scrapped.
So, it gets hard for me to invalidate my own experience when society has all these judgements and warnings that are contradictory to my experience. Of course, I believe everything in the newspaper and TV like a good little robot as well.
Respectfully,
Thomas Lunde
----------
From: Barry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Re: Designer drugs...
Date: Fri, Oct 17, 2003, 7:19 PM
Thomas and Robert,
I don't intend to add fuel to the fire, but you both might want to consider a recent article in The Guardian on Ecstasy. The URL is http://observer.guardian.co.uk/drugs/story/0,11908,1037045,00.html
Thomas Lunde wrote:
Thomas:
Very interesting - and I might add contradictory. On the one hand it starts
by giving us the "official" info on a drug - fair enough.
Then we move into the psychological realm - in which this drug is used as a
tool - by men - against women. Now, note - the men are not under the
influence - they use the drug from a conscious rational state - for them, it
is - I want to get laid and anything is fair in love and war - or some other
childish rationale. So, the question begs to be asked - "Are these men
normal - or are they psychological deviants wandering around our society
committing acts of pathology. The women are the victims - and there seems
to be no justice.
Would these individuals still exist and practice their pathology if GHB had
never been invented? Of course, a little wine, a little booze, a joint,
whatever, as long as I get laid. A major crime classification with definite
victims who have suffered is ignored or redirected to the drug. It is not
the drug - it is the individual using the drug to take advantage of another
- the drug just makes it easier.
And societies cost - unwed mothers who we then punish with social stigmata
and financial suffering. The psychopath's win another one.
So, it's a real blame the victim game and avoid/deny addressing the real
problem - individuals among us who can only be considered psychopathic.
Respectfully,
Thomas Lunde
----------
From: "Robert E. Bowd" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> , "Christoph Reuss" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Futurework] Re: Designer drugs...
Date: Thu, Oct 16, 2003, 8:32 AM
GHB and Women: We have some things to tell you
written by: Krista, Jessica, Zahra, Leigha and Janet
& Tamara for the Vancouver Rape Relief Collective, October 2002
We started meeting because men attacked two of us and we
separately called Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelter. After
discussing the details of the attacks on us and the details of GHB use in
our lives and communities to our rape crisis workers, it became clear that
we had to do something. We gathered up our friends and met on the agenda of
teaching Rape Relief what we know, to get support for ourselves about the
attacks the women in our lives and we experienced, and to plan to do
something about it.
We are a group of women in our 20's, all of us employed, and all
of us have used GHB recreationally. We all have experienced male violence at
some point in our lives, and we can all point to a particular assault by a
man or men, on ourselves or several women close to us, when we were either
taking GHB willingly, or had been given it when we didn't know. These facts
are what drives our decision to write about our experiences, to warn other
women , create a way for women in Vancouver to discuss this with each other
and prevent further attacks on other girls and women.
What do we know about GHB?
From talking to each other, we found out that most of what we
new anecdotally about GHB has factual basis. We did an internet search and
also gathered other materials about GHB to confirm this.
a.. GHB (Gamma-hydroxybutyrate), naturally occurs in the human
body as an amino acid. It is a central nervous system depressant, and can
relax and sedate the body. Body builders often use it in their training, for
weight loss and muscle building. The manufactured drug is now a standard
drug in most party and dance scenes in North America, used for the euphoric
state it produces.
b.. GHB can be produced in clear liquid, white powder, tablet,
and capsule forms. GHB can be colorless, odorless and tastes salty. Food
color is often added so that people don't confuse GHB with water.
c.. Slang or Street Names: Grievous Bodily Harm, G, Liquid
Ecstasy.
d.. GHB is considered a Schedule 3 drug under the Canadian
Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.
e.. Negative side-effects that occur especially when GHB is
ingested with alcohol and signs that an overdose may have been taken are:
dose-dependent drowsiness, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, amnesia, visual
hallucinations, loss of consciousness, loss of reflexes, reduced blood
pressure, decreased heart rate, hypnotic effects resembling petit- mal
epilepsy, convulsions, severe respiratory depression, coma and death.
Overdose requires emergency room care.
f.. If taken on it's own, in small doses, GHB leaves little
hang over. But you will often not remember details and you will have a
different version of your behaviour then other people will tell you
happened.
g.. The slang for the symptoms of an overdose is "G-holing."
h.. GHB is often manufactured in homes with recipes and
ingredients found and purchased on the Internet. Ingredients in GHB,
gamma-butyrolactone (GBL) and 1,4-butanediol, can also be converted by the
body into GHB. These ingredients are found in dietary supplements, available
in health food stores and gyms, and are used to induce sleep, build muscles,
and enhance sexual performance.
i.. GHB is cleared from the body relatively quickly, so it is
sometimes difficult to detect in drug screens taken at the hospital
emergency room and other treatment facilities. Some studies indicate it is
metabolized with in 4 hours of ingestion, others say up to 12 or 16.
And here are some more things to consider:
a.. Men hand out GHB to women at parties and clubs.
b.. There are bar tenders in some clubs in Vancouver who take
money from men to dose women's drinks with GHB.
c.. We have been warned by men friends about guys who hang out
with girls and women who do "G" hoping they will be able to take advantage
of the women later.
d.. There is a party scene separate from the usual dance and
rave scene with people who party and use GHB all the time. The women in
these circles are often called "g-whores," both because of their excessive
use of the drug and because of how much sex they seem to be willingly having
with men. There is no equivalent slang for the men behaving the same way;
nor is there any intervention in situations where it is clear that if the
woman was sober she would not consent to the sexual acts she is supposedly
consenting to.
e.. The ambulance attendants think that the aftermath of a
dosing of GHB is not worth the cost a trip to the hospital for an "expensive
drug screen"
f.. 911 will refer women to poison control instead of the
police when we call suspecting someone has given us GHB. The police will not
investigate the above situation without the forensic drug screen
g.. The Vancouver Police Department sexual offences squad and
major crimes units do not share information about potential drugging. They
cannot tell us which clubs women are getting drugged in because they are not
keeping track of the reports. (see new info, Vancouver Sun clippings, July
2003)
h.. Between us we could name at least 10 sexual assaults or
druggings on other women and we have all intervened to prevent others from
happening.
So what's a woman to do?
Women are going to go out and party. Some of us are going to use
GHB willingly. But what we came to understand by telling each other about
GHB is that too often the circumstances are quickly out of our control, even
when we are with friends. As with other situations where men are more likely
to rape and sexually assault us because we are vulnerable, there are a lot
of do's and don'ts directed at women, supposedly so we can protect ourselves
and prevent rape. As women who have actively intervened to protect the women
and girls around us, we gotta say that whether a woman has taken GHB on her
own or it was slipped in her drink, once she has ingested that GHB, she has
no control over what is going to happen.
That is why we think there has to be a concerted effort to tell
men to stop taking advantage, and to encourage men and women who know about
the violence against women that is going on to intervene. We can tell women
not to mix their GHB and their cocktails all we want. But ultimately, it is
men who must decide not to drug us, and not to rape us once we can't do
anything about it. Women need straight up information about GHB and other
drugs, so we can make informed choices about what we put in our bodies. A
lot of women will think twice about taking GHB once they have all the
details.
Listen up, guys!
We're not gonna take it! So pay attention! And besides, you'll
have way better sex with a conscious woman. By now, most men will have heard
about "no means no." Most guys agree and back off. But for this small group
of women to have experienced the assaults as we have, and know about as many
attacks as we do, there are still way too many men who aren't listening.
So here's the deal, one more time:
a.. When a woman says no, or appears reluctant or starts
crying or is passed out in bed or cannot speak, this would generally mean
she does not want to have sex. With you, or anybody for that matter. The
appropriate thing to do would be to back off, leave the room, cover her with
a blanket and tell one of her friends she's passed out, say you're sorry and
go for a walk. If you do anything that is even close to continuing to have
sex, and actually do have sex with her in these situations, you are sexually
assaulting her and you are committing a crime under at least two sections of
the criminal code.
b.. When a woman is out for a night on the town, she has a
right to make her own decisions about what she puts in her body. This means
if she takes GHB, she does not want to be plied with drinks, because she
could end up with serious harm to her body, even end up having seizures, in
a coma or dying. If she is drinking it is not at all cool for men to go
putting any drug in her drink. In either case, you are putting her at a
serious risk of harm to her body, and you are committing a criminal code
offence called "administering a noxious substance." If she dies, you are
looking at a homicide charge. All the hype about GHB is that it is a fun
night out. Getting a woman so sick she needs to be hospitalized, having sex
with her when she can't tell you what she really wants, and committing
criminal offences are not exactly a good time. For the woman especially but
also for the man.
c.. If you want to have sex, good sex that means something and
is somewhat exciting for both people, plan for a clean and sober date. It's
that simple. It's her right. And your responsibility.
So now you know (again.)
What we are going do about it:
This group of women is going to intervene, and keep on
intervening. We will help women in the clubs. We will let the club owners
know that we hold them responsible for what happens in their places of
business. We will not put up with this kind of violence against women. We
have already filed complaints with Ecomm (911), the BC Ambulance Service and
the Vancouver Police Department over the handling of a drugging of a woman.
We will keep referring women who suspect men have drugged them to Vancouver
Rape Relief, both for support and for advocacy.
We know that GHB is not the only drug that men use to rape women
with, but we want to highlight GHB right now because so many women are at
risk. Rapist men are taking advantage of our recreational use of this drug
and it's relatively abundant availability to attack us. Most of us have
stopped using GHB now, as we can see how these men have undermined us and we
are determined to not let this happen to ourselves again.
© Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelter, October 2002.
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