Wine drinkers may be imbibing illicit drug

Drinkers of wine, sherry and port may be unknowingly breaking the law and consuming small doses of the party drug fantasy, an illegal class B drug.

The revelation has brought calls for wine to be tested to see if there are traces of gamma-hydroxybutyric acid (GHB), or its precursor gamma-butyrolactone (GBL) – the active ingredient in fantasy.

The Ministry of Health has only just been made aware of the issue and is working through how to deal with it.

But alcohol is already a Class C controlled drug analogue.

The substance at the top is 1,4-butanediol (“Fantasy”), a class B controlled drug.

The substance at the bottom is ethanol (“Alcohol”).

The Misuse of Drugs Act 1975 states that

controlled drug analogue means any substance … that has a structure substantially similar to that of any controlled drug …