{"id":1162828,"date":"2026-08-22T09:34:29","date_gmt":"2026-08-22T09:34:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1162828\/"},"modified":"2026-08-22T09:34:29","modified_gmt":"2026-08-22T09:34:29","slug":"why-ghb-is-spilling-into-londons-mainstream-nightlife","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1162828\/","title":{"rendered":"Why GHB is spilling into London\u2019s mainstream nightlife"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"STYLE\"<\/p>\n

The invitation to an illegal rave in a London<\/a> forest came with the usual instructions: arrive after midnight, bring your own booze, plenty of water and, above all, keep quiet. \u201cThe police exist,\u201d it warned. \u201cWe exist quietly alongside their existence.\u201d Then came an order: \u201cNo GHB. None. Not in any form, concentration, or intention. This is absolute. We will not accept it, shelter it, or acknowledge its existence.\u201d<\/p>\n

For decades, GHB \u2014 or \u201cG\u201d, the salty-tasting drug sometimes known as \u201cliquid ecstasy\u201d \u2014 has been largely associated with gay clubs and chemsex (sex under the influence of drugs). But the drug is spilling into London\u2019s wider nightlife, leaving a new generation reckoning with one of the least forgiving yet fastest-acting euphoria-inducing mind-alterants on the dancefloor. <\/p>\n

There are reasons GHB might be having its moment. It is cheap and short-lasting, and consumers describe a high somewhere between the joyous drunkenness of alcohol and the rapturousness of MDMA. But without, they claim, sacrificing the following day. They also prize it as a powerful aphrodisiac and sexual performance aid. Meanwhile, ketamine has acquired a grim reputation for bladder damage, and generally does not help one make love like an Adonis, nor rediscover their gift of the gab. <\/p>\n

\u201cWho wants to be incontinent?\u201d says Professor Fiona Measham, chair in criminology at the University of Liverpool and chair of harm reduction charity The Loop. GHB, she suggests, may be filling the gap. \u201cWe\u2019ve definitely seen it moving from gay to straight worlds.\u201d <\/p>\n

Dark side is just a sip away<\/p>\n

Ignacio Labayen de Inza, who runs the London chemsex support organisation Controlling Chemsex<\/a>, agrees. \u201cIt\u2019s not just a gay thing,\u201d he says. \u201cNow there are people who are using it in straight clubs. It\u2019s much cheaper than drinking alcohol.\u201d But there is a catch. A recreational dose of GHB can amount to just a few millilitres, or even less for its close chemical relative GBL, a more potent drug that the body converts into GHB. The margin for error is notoriously narrow. The \u201ceffective dose\u201d and overdose dose \u201care so close together that it\u2019s very easy to accidentally overdose,\u201d says Measham. Or, as drugs expert Simon Doherty reports, \u201cthe optimum dose, which will give you the best threesome of your life, is not far away from the dose that will give you the last threesome of your life.\u201d<\/p>\n

The margin for error is notoriously narrow<\/p>\n

It helps explain why parties have banned the drug, from the London forest rave to festivals and clubs in Europe like Draaimolen and Berghain, as just a small difference in dose can torpedo someone from ecstasy to blackout chaos. \u201cSometimes you become like an animal,\u201d says Labayen de Inza. \u201cYou don\u2019t even know your name.\u201d The dark side to GHB<\/a>, he warns, is just an errant sip away. Another sip of \u201cthe most dangerous club drug\u201d can even be fatal. Yet for GHB\u2019s devotees, the peril can seem almost inseparable from the appeal.<\/p>\n

London has long been one of the world\u2019s capitals of GHB use, even while overall use remains niche. Its pre-pandemic rise among straight people was attributed to how it has \u201cno sugar, no calories and no hangover\u201d. Today, those same qualities could perversely appeal to a health-optimisation-obsessed generation.<\/p>\n

\"GHB<\/p>\n

Gerhard Seybert – stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n

One indication of the scale of supply came in April, when a man was jailed after the Metropolitan police seized more than 2,000 litres of GBL \u2014 one of the force\u2019s biggest confiscations on record. At festivals where The Loop tests drugs for contamination and purity, medics have increasingly handed Measham\u2019s team the telltale little bottles found on people who have collapsed. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen a bit of an uptick in terms of people coming and overdosing at festivals on G and in clubs,\u201d she says. Ketamine allegedly killed the dancefloor by dissociating ravers until they can barely move, even for statuesque London standards. Conversely, before someone is \u201cG\u2019ing out\u201d and intoxicated to near collapse, they are charged with a boisterousness far removed from ketamine\u2019s stupor. \u201cPeople forget how much they\u2019ve taken, or they take a swig of their mate\u2019s drink without realising it contains G,\u201d says Measham. <\/p>\n

GHB also has a notorious history in drug-facilitated sexual assault, earning it the label \u201cdate rape drug\u201d. In 2022 it was reclassified as a Class B drug from Class C following concern over its use in a slew of high-profile cases. <\/p>\n

But its history is more complicated. In the gay community, its use as a hyperpermissive love drug \u2014 often with the once again prevalent mephedrone, or crystal meth \u2014 has sustained marathon, consensual sex sessions. The same properties that make GHB attractive for uninhibited sex or dancing can also make it habit-forming. Labayen de Inza knows this personally. \u201cI was taking G day and night,\u201d he says. Dependence can develop rapidly, with the drug\u2019s short duration forcing some heavy users into round-the-clock dosing. For years, he could not sleep longer than three hours without waking up and needing GHB to get back to sleep. Eventually the purpose of the drug had completely changed: \u201cYou don\u2019t use G to get high. You just take G just to function.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t use G to get high. You just take G just to function\u201d<\/p>\n

Labayen de Inza<\/p>\n

For one occasional consumer who did not want to be named for professional reasons, the danger became real in March when he passed out in the queue for an afterparty. He has not taken GHB since. \u201cJust carrying a bottle of GHB and knowing that if you drink it all, you might die, carries a perilous and intense energy,\u201d he says. \u201cBut for many it\u2019s clearly worth it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The invitation to an illegal rave in a London forest came with the usual instructions: arrive after midnight,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1162829,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,535,393,9800,4884,257,19606,302578,16,15],"class_list":["post-1162828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-london","tag-britain","tag-drugs","tag-england","tag-ghb","tag-great-britain","tag-london","tag-nightlife","tag-partying","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1162828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1162828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1162828\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1162829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1162828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1162828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1162828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}