Date Rape Drug Draws Increasing Attention From Authorities

The recent arrest of rape suspect Andrew Luster is the first such case in Ventura County allegedly involving the date-rape drug GHB, which can knock out a person in a matter of minutes, local authorities say.

But the drug is drawing increasing attention from law enforcement, which is scrambling to decide how best to control GHB use and to alert the public to its dangers.

“I have spoken to women who feel they’ve been victims,” said Ventura County Sheriff’s Det. Brian Tiffany. “I’ve talked to women who have been to clubs and feel something was given to them. Is it a problem here? Yes, it is.”

The popularity of date rape drugs--like the clear, slightly salty-tasting liquid GHB--has prompted bar owners and law enforcement agencies around the state to launch aggressive public awareness campaigns.

In Santa Barbara County, bar owners are so concerned about date rape drugs that they have taken to passing out “awareness cards” and posting warning signs in the ladies restrooms.

And in San Diego County, officials spent $100,000 in the weeks before spring break on billboards, bumper stickers, posters, and television and radio ads urging college revelers to carefully watch over their drinks.

Ventura County officials acknowledge that they have had few arrests involving the drug, but say that has more to do with the difficulty of tracing the substance rather than its absence from the county.

Authorities say GHB, once sold in health food stores and marketed as a workout supplement, only stays in the system about 12 hours. All traces of the heavy sedative are usually gone by the time a victim is able to contact police, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Dee Corona, who oversees her office’s sexual assault unit.

“If a woman goes to a bar for a drink, it’s 11 or 12 at night,” said Corona. “The next thing she knows, it’s 8 in the morning, she’s in someone’s apartment. By the time she gets dressed, figures out what happened and goes to police, the 12 hours have passed. Then it’s an uphill battle to prove drugs were used.”

One Ventura rape crisis center reports having received dozens of calls in the last year from young women who say they were drugged and raped.

Other reports of GHB abuses have cropped up around the county, including one involving a fatality.

Last summer, a 20-year-old California Lutheran University student died from an accidental overdose of alcohol and GHB, marking the first death tied to the drug in the county.

Two weeks ago, authorities arrested a 25-year-old Simi Valley man on suspicion of making a half-gallon batch of GHB, worth about $10,000, out of his Delano Street home. Michael J. Calistro has pleaded not guilty to the charge.

It’s one of the first cases on record in the county involving an arrest for a GHB lab. But like the Luster case, it’s a sign of more things to come, detectives believe.

“I’m hearing about this stuff more than ever before,” said Tiffany, who noted that GHB is becoming even more popular than its predecessor, Rohypnol. “Rohypnol was a lot bigger. But now, I would view GHB as the larger problem.”

GHB Has Eclipsed Rohypnol

In 1999, Santa Paula saw a sharp increase in the number of cases involving Rohypnol, a small, white tablet widely sold in Mexico that can render a victim unconscious. In four months, officers there made 10 arrests for possession.

But thanks in part to a crackdown on Rohypnol at the Mexican border in San Diego, popularity of the drug dipped--only to be quickly replaced by GHB. That’s because GHB is made from a simple concoction of chemicals obtained at home improvement stores.

In February, Clinton signed a bill making it illegal to possess the ingredients to mix the potent drug. But because many of the same chemicals are used in popular cleaning products, prosecution for GHB possession can be tricky, authorities said.

Gail Abarbanel, director of the Rape Treatment Center at Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center, said some firms still sell GHB online, getting around federal laws by marketing it as a cleaning agent. The result has been easy access for predators.

Linda Finnerty, acting director for victims services in the Ventura County district attorney’s office, said a Santa Paula teenager told of being drugged just a few weeks ago.

“She remembers going to a party,” Finnerty said. “And she remembers three different faces, and some flashes going off, so she knows pictures were taken.”

She woke up about eight hours later, with no idea who her attackers were. No arrests have been made.

Tiffany said he’s talked to about 10 other women in the past year with similar stories. In each case, time has proved an enemy. Medical tests for traces of the drug always come back negative.

“It’s hard enough to get someone who is the victim of a sex crime to expose herself to the criminal justice system,” Corona said. “And these are people who are aware they’ve been assaulted. Now combine that with people [not being able to] remember what exactly happened. That’s going to really cut down on the number of women who are willing to come to police.”

Investigators say Luster, who has pleaded not guilty to the 40 charges of rape and kidnapping leveled against him, was a regular along the row of bars dotting State Street in Santa Barbara.

It’s just the latest hit for the city, which undertook a vigorous anti-GHB campaign after a 24-year-old woman was allegedly raped when two men slipped drugs into her tequila drink at a downtown bar.

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Times staff writer Tracy Wilson and correspondent Holly J. Wolcott contributed to this story.