Date: Monday, February 7, 2000
Edition: CHICAGO SPORTS FINAL
Section: NEWS Page: 1 Zone: N
Source: By Sue Ellen Christian, Tribune Staff Writer.
Dateline: DETROIT

Fifteen-year-old Samantha Reid, nicknamed "Hammy Sammy" for her love of the camera, and two girlfriends left for a Saturday night out on Jan. 16, 1999. They said they were going to a movie with two boys from their high school.

But in a move typical of many adolescents, the group skipped the movie, cruised around in a van, got peach Slurpees at a 7-Eleven and ended up in an apartment belonging to a friend of the boys. Some smoked pot, some drank alcohol. They watched "Saturday Night Live" and the movies "Jackie Brown" and "Superfly," according to court documents.

At one point, Samantha asked for a Mountain Dew, and even though she remarked it tasted "gross," she drank it. Within minutes, the 9th-grader was asleep on the sofa. A while later, she began vomiting. The others put her on the bathroom floor alongside her friend Melanie Sindone, then 14, who had gotten ill after sipping a cocktail made for her.

The last thing Melanie recalls of the evening was "being numb." When Melanie regained consciousness hours later, she was in a suburban Detroit hospital bed. As for Samantha, she never came out of a coma; she died of poisoning from a volatile party drug called GHB, or gamma hydroxybutyrate.

Opening arguments begin Monday in what prosecutors say to their knowledge is the nation's first manslaughter trial for poisoning by GHB. Four young men, all of whom have pleaded not guilty, are charged with manslaughter and poisoning and could face life in prison. One defendant will have a separate jury because he confessed to putting GHB in the drinks and has implicated other defendants.

The case and Samantha's death put a face--in this case, a young face with an infectious smile--on the problem of GHB use. A fast-acting depressant of the central nervous system, it is a colorless, odorless liquid with a salty taste. It is illegal but is no longer relegated to all-night "raves" and the underground party scene. Instead the drug is growing in popularity among white, suburban adolescents and college students, some of whom are addicted to its quick effect of euphoria.

Authorities fear that users don't realize the danger of the compound, which contains the same ingredients as floor stripper and industrial cleaner. According to Drug Enforcement Administration figures, GHB has been linked to at least 58 deaths since 1990 and more than 5,700 overdoses.

Monday's trial opens amid a host of legislative and federal initiatives to educate teens and parents about the dangers of GHB and other so-called club drugs. President Clinton is expected to sign legislation passed by the House last week that puts GHB in the most tightly regulated category of drugs with the strongest penalties for misuse.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse recently boosted research funding and joined other organizations to launch a public education campaign about club drugs such as GHB and Rohypnol, which often are characterized as "date-rape" drugs because they can produce amnesia and incapacitate people, leaving women susceptible to sexual assault.

"There isn't much awareness about these club drugs," said Dr. Alan Leshner, the institute's director. "It's a tough population to reach because they are kids and young adults.
"The use rates are going up. . . . We're trying to get in the path of the plague to stop it," Leshner said.

Recipes for GHB and gamma butyrolactone, which metabolizes into GHB when ingested, are available on the Internet. GHB has been sold in health food stores as a dietary supplement and used as a steroid alternative by body builders. In 1990 the Food and Drug Administration began investigating the drug after numerous cases of illness were reported. The agency, however, has approved the use of GHB in the study of treating narcolepsy, a sleeping disorder.

Particularly frightening to public health experts is that the same dosage of GHB can affect people in wildly different ways. The drug can cause vomiting, dizziness, tremors and seizures.

Because it is short-lived in the body, the drug is difficult for doctors to detect. Federal figures report that emergency room visits resulting from GHB use increased to 762 in 1997 from 20 in 1992, with a total of more than 1,600 episodes.

"Samantha Reid and her friend woke a lot of people up," said Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), who sponsored GHB legislation named after Reid.

In Samantha's case, the emergency room physician suspected GHB, but it took two months for a toxicology lab to return results confirming ingestion. When Dr. Harlan Mast saw Reid at 4:45 a.m. on Jan. 17, 1999, at Seaway Hospital of Trenton, "she looked dead," he testified.

"I found her without any vital signs, without any signs of life. . . . There were no heart tones, no breath sounds," Mast said. "I felt it was very consistent with GHB."

As Samantha's mother, Judi Clark, raced to the hospital, she was not thinking about GHB, but about recent reports of teens binge drinking. "I was planning her punishment; I was going to ground her until she was 20," said Clark, 38.

But when she saw her daughter on a respirator, "I asked, `What could have done this?' " Clark recalled.

Clark and her daughter were close. Each week they had a mother-daughter bonding day. Samantha, whose parents divorced when she was 2, would coach her mom on what to wear on dates. And when news reports came on about the dangers of drugs, alcohol, or crimes that Clark thought her kids should be aware of, she'd pull aside Samantha and her brother, Charlie, 19, to watch.

The family's suburban Rockwood home is filled with photos of Clark's grinning, gregarious daughter. The same wide smile greets visitors to a new Web site designed by Samantha's family and friends, who are driven to make something meaningful emerge from her death.

At the top of the site's home page, at www.ghbkills.com, are the words:
"What you don't know can kill you."

"I couldn't let her death be meaningless," said Clark, a pipe fitter and welder. "Parents should share the story of Samantha with their children and tell them to trust no one, that the drink you have in your hands is your life in your hands."

Tag: 0002070055
Keywords:
MICHIGAN COURT FIRST MURDER PROBE JUVENILE DRUG
BEHAVIOR CRIME LAW

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