Agents seize
date-rape drug in
care home

A Foster Village man is
charged after a liquid was
found in a water cooler

By Rod Ohira
Star-Bulletin

Investigators seized more than 8 pounds of a date-rape drug stored in a water dispenser at a Foster Village home that provides child-care services.

Stevan Eberhardt, 45, of 1386 Olino St., was charged yesterday with first-degree promotion of a dangerous drug and manufacturing gamma hydroxybutyrate. He is being held at the Honolulu District Court cellblock in lieu of $100,000 bail.

Eberhardt will be arraigned Monday in District Court.

Ed Howard, state Narcotics Enforcement Division supervising investigator, said the seized GHB has a street value of $37,000.

Stevan
Eberhardt

The clear liquid was being stored in a large bottled-water dispenser in the kitchen of a home that provides child-care to six or seven youngsters, ages 3-5, Howard said.

Other members of Eberhardt's family, including his mother-in-law, who is a licensed child-care service provider, were unaware a dangerous drug was being stored in the water container, Howard said.

"It's scary because although (GHB) is thicker, it looks like water and someone could have drank it," Howard said.

What makes GHB dangerous is it produces unpredictable reactions, he added.

"Some people could ingest two or three drops of it and die, while others go into a permanent coma," Howard said. "But it won't do anything to others except put them into a restful sleep."It's used now mostly as a date-rape drug because it can knock people out and distort their memories."

Officers raided Eberhardt's lab operation on Monday at 6 p.m., the second GHB lab bust since April.

Information obtained from the new Chemical Diversion Control Program reporting system led to Eberhardt's arrest, says Howard.

Under a new state law, companies must report transaction information to the Narcotics Enforcement Division involving chemicals that could be used to manufacture dangerous drugs.

Two of 60 companies registered with the program reported the sale of sodium hydroxide and GBL lactone to Eberhardt.

"Those two chemicals are not precursor chemicals, so they didn't have to report them, but the companies are aware the components can be utilized to make GHB," Howard said. "We probably would have never caught on to this guy if it were not for the reporting.

"It proves the program is working."

Eberhardt told the companies he was purchasing the chemicals for a military construction job. State investigators determined the information was false and began a surveillance operation that led to the raid.

Hawaii is one of eight states that lists GHB as a schedule I dangerous drug.

Eberhardt, who is unemployed, was manufacturing and distributing GHB, says Howard. Officers seized other chemicals and books in the raid, along with recipes for GHB obtained on the Internet.