Up to 20 people may have died as a result of taking the legal party drug GBL. Politicians and medical experts joined the call for the substance to be made illegal after The Daily Telegraph disclosed the death of medical student Hester Stewart.
The Home Office has failed to ban GBL despite saying that it would be made illegal eight months ago after being advised to do so by the Government’s drugs advisors.
Dr Sean Cummings, who runs a private GP clinic in Harley Street London which specialises in drugs patients and has come across many cases of GBL poisonings, revealed that around six people a year have died from it since it emerged in the past few years.
Available at just 50p a dose, it is similar to the notorious banned “date-rape” drug GHB, and converts into that substance in the stomach, which can be lethal in tiny doses when mixed with alcohol. “It is a very dangerous drug,” Dr Cummins said. “On the clubbing scene I would say that GBL poisonings are a daily occurrence.
“There is also anecdotal evidence from a barman in one club in south London that said he had lost seven of his friends in one year.”
GBL has been banned for personal use in America, Canada and Sweden.One Labour MP introduced a Bill in the Commons last October last year to ban GBL and said that it could be passed into law in just 90 minutes.
An influential Commons committee will examine this summer the Home Office’s approach to illegal drugs and why some harmful drugs are still legal.
In a statement released to The Daily Telegraph, Maryon Stewart, Hester’s mother, welcomed the inquiry. “We intend to campaign as a family to get this lethal substance banned in the UK,” she said.
