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Article: FDA legalizes medicinal version of date-rape drug; Restrictions: GHB will treat complication of narcolepsy
- Article from:
- Telegraph - Herald (Dubuque)
- Article date:
- July 18, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2002 Telegraph - Herald (Dubuque). Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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WASHINGTON (AP) - The notorious date-rape drug GHB won government
approval Wednesday to treat a rare but dangerous complication of the
sleep disorder narcolepsy - but it will be sold under some of the
most severe restrictions ever imposed on a medicine.
The Food and Drug Administration approval puts the chemical in a
peculiar position. Throughout the 1990s, the government cracked down
on illegal use of GHB - abused as a party drug, sex and athletic
enhancer and, because it can knock people out, a date-rape drug.
Several dozen deaths are blamed on the chemical's abuse.
Now the maker of the only FDA-approved version, Orphan Medical
Inc., will have to balance how to get GHB to the relatively ...