Pubdate: Sat, 03 Feb 2001
Source: Timaru Herald (New Zealand)
Copyright: 2001 Timaru Herald
Contact:  PO Box 46 Timaru New Zealand
Fax: 64 3 688 1042

ONE4B A DANGER

One4b can induce euphoria, help users lose weight without exercising, 
reduce wrinkles, heighten orgasm, reduce hair growth and eliminate 
cellulite. It can also cause dangerously low respiratory rates, 
unconsciousness, vomiting, seizures and death. It depends on who you listen 
to. The first from an Auckland-based company distributing the product, the 
second from the United States Federal Drug Administration, which has banned it.

It is in the news here because four young men were admitted to hospital 
over one weekend, three of them in comas. The danger they were in depends, 
again, on who you talk to. The St John Ambulance spokeswoman, on the first 
two victims: "They were status one which is critical - the next step after 
that is death". Or distributor Mark Barlow: "The comatose state in which 
the men were taken to hospital was a natural effect of the drug. It could 
produce a three-to-five-hour deep sleep from which users were unwakeable".

Which side to place more faith in is obvious, and it is pleasing that the 
Ministry of Health has acted so quickly in calling in all supplies while it 
investigates.

The distributors of the substance have some explaining to do. While 1,4 
butanediol is legal and used in industrial solvents, the way it has been 
marketed highlights its euphoric properties as a drug. The Auckland 
company, Outerspace, was selling One4b as a dietary supplement, but three 
of the four comatose men were at nightclubs when they overdosed, and their 
aim was not to lose a lot of weight in a hurry.

In Timaru a company advertising itself as suppliers of legal highs has been 
selling a record, CD and head cleaning solution called Puritech which 
contains 1,4 butanediol. When reformulated it is sold in sachets as One4b, 
but because it is being used to get high, because of the ease of overdosing 
and because of the possibility it could kill, it was proper for the 
authorities to step in.

Outerspace may argue the dangers of One4b are no different to those of 
aspirin or even glue if someone is of a mind to ignore warnings, but those 
products have a proven worth and are on the whole properly used.

That is not the case with One4b. People should not end up in hospital 
because they have supposedly gone on a diet.
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MAP posted-by: Beth