Rocker's Soap Tests Positive for GHB
A soap manufacturer is coming to the defense of a punk rocker who was jailed after his bottle of liquid peppermint cleanser tested positive for gamma-hydroxybutyrate, or GHB, often called the "date-rape drug" because it leaves people groggy and powerless.
Germs drummer Don Bolles was arrested last week after police pulled over the 50-year-old musician on a traffic stop. Police said a toiletry kit containing denture glue, razors and a bottle of Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap was found inside the vehicle.
A field test of the soap indicated it was GHB, said Sgt. Evan Sailor of the Newport Beach Police Department. Bolles, whose real name is Jimmy Michael Giorsetti, was arrested on suspicion of felony narcotics possession.
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Bolles, who lives in Huntington Beach, was released from jail Sunday on $2,500 bond.
He told the Los Angeles Times he has been using Dr. Bronner's for 35 years, adding that the organic ingredients help give him the complexion of a 15-year-old girl.
"A date-rape drug is the last thing I need," he said. "If anything, I need a way to keep the girls off me. They make my girlfriend mad."
Executives at Escondido-based Dr. Bronner's hired an attorney, Bruce Margolin, to represent the rocker.
David Bronner, the company's president, said police field tests of Magic Soap have occasionally indicated THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, because the soap includes hemp oil. But he said finding GHB in the product is "beyond belief. ... The field test must have been flawed or tampered with."
The Orange County Crime Lab was conducting more tests.
The Germs, a punk band formed in Los Angeles in the 1970s, are credited with influencing generations of musicians and popularizing mohawks. Bolles took his name from Arizona Republic journalist Don Bolles, who was killed in 1976 by a car bomb while investigating corruption.