The demonisation of GHB in North America: A New Form of Inquisition
We have been living, since the 1960s, in a world of Inquisition against all psychotropic molecules which generate some forms of pleasure. This modern Inquisition started in America as a puritanical expression of American society to ban pleasure from life. This Inquisition should be fought against as it has halted the development of scientific research on the mind. 30 years of research have been lost because Americans imposed an intellectual embargo on many forms of research involving the mind. For instance, all research on the hallucinogens was stopped, thanks to this perverse Inquisition. This intellectual embargo should be lifted and scientists and laymen should fight for that.
No Inquisition can be accepted in the scientific field. American society has systematically demonised all psychotropic molecules which can give pleasure. (Even alcohol was demonised but this demonisation was not successful.) This is sheer madness and should strongly be opposed. One of the reasons which motivated me to write what you are reading is that GHB has been in use, by knowledgeable people in Europe, for decades. Now it has reached the USA, unfortunately because, as usual, some American inquisitors are trying to demonise this very useful molecule. In America, the ayatollahs want, desperately, to control the use of our mind. This is an untolerable situation. Progress is made through freedom and knowledge. The quest for Freedom is a never-ending quest. It is surprising that you do not yet need a prescription for champagne, wines and other alcohols in North America because if alcohol were judged by pharmaceutical standards it would have been banned a long time ago.
GHB in France and North-America
GHB was invented by Dr Wermuth, in France, for Dr Henri Laborit who is the father of chlorpromazine and modern psychopharmacology. Wermuth created gamma-hydroxybutyrate in 1961 in the search of a GABA analogue which could readily penetrate the blood-brain barrier. Gamma-OH soon went on the market as an hypnotic which could be obtained with no medical prescription. The French, until I started to study this molecule, were unable to classify it under any existing class, because sometimes it was an hypnotic inducing a form of sleep very similar to normal sleep, then it became a pre-anaesthetic, etc. About 15 years ago, I finally discovered that GHB was, in fact, a molecule to be classified under the novel class of the Sociabilisers, together with its butyrolactone form which is readily transformed into GHB in the blood by a non specific lactonase. In fact, butyrolactone is a pro-drug giving rise to gamma-hydroxybutyric acid. GHB has a recognised peripheric oxytocinergic action while its central oxytocin properties are still to be demonstrated but seem very likely.
GHB is known in France through the many books of Henri Laborit and his conferences! Laborit always praised the properties of GHB and, as France is definitely not a puritanical society banning pleasure from existence, GHB has always been available, even though its stimulates pleasure. Laborit always advocated the general use of GHB in society, like butter or milk ! Why? Because it takes away your stress, makes you more positive towards life, suppresses selectively, like a kind of "psychological diode", your painful feelings, stimulates your sociability and makes you more tender, more loving, more concerned by others. Also you become keenly aware that you have only one life and that life should be a quest for happiness. GHB makes you realise how much you need others (not something for businessmen and militaries or gangsters!!!) and this is a highly positive thing. I always knew that when GHB arrived in puritanical North America it would one day be demonised. Unfortunately for North Americans, the ayatollahs of the pleasure Inquisition have struck again and banned gamma-hydroxybutyrate! Laborit just died, recently, a few months ago at an old age. Sometimes he used to joke that GHB made him live longer as he would suppress his stress with this "drinkable gold" in cases of need! He always said that his two greatest discoveries were chlorpromazine and GHB but he never fully realised that GHB could open a new era in the management of depression and anxiety. He never fought to promote the study of the psychotropic effects of GHB, he never discovered that GHB was the first molecule of a novel class: the Sociabilisers. He just enjoyed GHB, with his friends, while conducting other researches. All the people who have surrounded Laborit have naturally more or less been exposed to GHB! I was lucky to be one of these people. GHB is still a crude medicine. It should be properly studied and better analogues should be invented. The use of sociabilisers may have tremendous effects on our societies, reducing intra-specific aggression and enhancing cooperation instead of competition. GHB is a convivial medicine as it shows you that you need others to be happy. Long term on-and-off use seems to make you more immune to stress and dysphoria, more loving towards people in general, more active in your life as it stimulates your enthusiasm because you are so aware that life can be a fantastic thing, every day. The general use of sociabilisers may be a temporary solution for the intra-specific aggressivity of the human kind. Can GHB and novel analogs reduce wars, at last? I leave this question opened for your reflexion.
I will now summarise the psychotropic profile of GHB, something which I did in a lengthy paper many years ago, in French.
Description of the Psychotropic Effects of GHB (1985)
GHB has the following properties:
1) GHB stimulates sociability, which means that you feel like communicating with other people in all ways: emotionally, intellectually, sexually. And from this communication you feel a very strong and deep happiness.
2) GHB gives you a strong desire to touch others, physically and psychologically.
3) Communication becomes extremely gratifying as you feel you want to become close to people, not to isolate yourself.
4) GHB induces a strong sense of beauty. Everything looks so beautiful, so vivid, so enjoyable, so pleasurable, so important, so "deep".
5) The perception of movement is enhanced.
6) Three-dimensional perception is enhanced and vision seems more clear, better than usual.
7) The contrast of colours between objects is increased. A yellow "pissenlit" (dandelion), or a rose, etc, situated in front of, say, green grass, looks brighter, more real, closer to you.
8) If you are a man, a woman will look magnificent and very attractive. She may become just like a goddess to your eyes. Women will experience the same feelings towards men. However, these kinds of feelings depend of your cultural background. For instance, a simple Siamese woman will not feel such intense feelings but will report that she feels drunk! GHB is a very important tool in investigating the emotional background of a person. For instance loving people will become more loving while people devoid of these feelings will just feel in good mood, only. Some people may cry, which demonstrates that they have a lot of repressed material in themselves, etc. Crying under GHB is a very liberating experience because you can take out and release things which you normally keep deep inside and which thus hurt you. Crying under GHB takes away accumulated inner moral pains.
9) Sensuality becomes very intense. You want to touch, to kiss, to caress, to hold, to love, to hug, to make love. In summary, you want to contact others through any means available because you are just highly sociable!
10) According to Henri Laborit, GHB renders the clitoris more sensitive. Moreover, GHB increases love and sexual desires both in women and men.
11) You can sometimes feel a deep sense of "meaningfulness". Things become meaningful to you, even you are unable to scientifically define such a mystical feeling. This meaningfulness of reality is a very interesting phenomenon from a scientific point of view as it seems to show that there exists a "circuit" of meaningfulness in our nervous system. Non-specific activation of this circuit, under GHB, would give us a "deep" sense of "meaningfulness" which is, of course, imaginary.
12) GHB stimulates your recall abilities related to previous GHB experience. Each time you take GHB you can often clearly remember memories stored under another GHB context. Emotions are especially well-remembered and reexperienced. From these and other observations, I think GHB should be a tool of choice in psychoanalysis.
13) Some people feel an urge to defecate after GHB, probably because of muscle relaxation! One of the first reactions from a colleague of mine, after GHB, is to go to the toilet!!!
14) In fact, GHB induces a very pleasant sense of muscle relaxation, especially in the legs.
15) One of the most remarkable action of GHB is that it gives you a strong desire to live and to remain alive, despite unfavourable conditions.
When is GHB contraindicated?
Untreated epilepsy, eclampsia, hypokalemia, severe hypertension, alcoholism, association with opiates, antibiotics. For depressed patients, GHB should be taken only under medical supervision.
Claude Rifat, biologist, Gen & Egraveve, Suisse.