Drug tests exonerate punk rocker - was arrested for carrying soap

[karyn]

from la times

Don Bolles, arrested in Newport Beach on suspicion of possessing a date-**** drug, is freed after analysis shows it was only soap.

By Roy Rivenburg, Times Staff Writer
April 17, 2007

It was soap, not dope.

That's the verdict from additional testing of the peppermint-scented liquid that got punk rocker Don Bolles arrested on drug charges this month.

Bolles, 50, the legendary drummer for the Germs, spent three days in jail after Newport Beach police said they found GHB, the date-**** drug, inside a bottle of Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap in Bolles' 1968 Dodge van.

Police ran a field test on the yellowish goop after stopping Bolles for a broken taillight on April 4.

But a more sophisticated analysis by the Orange County Sheriff's Department crime lab detected no GHB in the soap, officials said Monday. As a result, all charges against Bolles will be dismissed, a spokeswoman for the Orange County district attorney's office said.

Meanwhile, the makers of Dr. Bronner's announced that other liquid soaps, including Neutrogena and Tom's of Maine, also can mistakenly register positive for GHB with the field test kit used by Newport Beach police.

Bronner's officials said they experimented with the ODV-brand NarcoPouch 928 test kit and various soaps over the weekend and would post a video of the results on their website next week.

"Police departments nationwide should immediately stop using the ODV field test for GHB," Bronner's president David Bronner said.

A spokesman for Armor Forensics, which manufactures the ODV test, said he wasn't familiar with the kit and couldn't immediately comment.

Bolles rose to fame in the late 1970s when he joined the pioneering L.A. punk band the Germs, a group credited with influencing generations of musicians and popularizing Mohawk haircuts.

The Germs dissolved in 1980 after 22-year-old singer Darby Crash committed suicide. Surviving members reunited in 2005 and plan to tour this summer.

Bolles, a Huntington Park resident whose real name is Jimmy Michael Giorsetti, took his stage name from an Arizona investigative journalist who was killed by a car bomb in 1976.

The drummer said he and his girlfriend, musician Cat Scandal, were driving to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting when Newport Beach police pulled over his van. Bolles said he always carries Dr. Bronner's organic soap, which he said helps keep his skin like that of a 15-year-old girl.

Bolles didn't return calls seeking comment Monday.

roy.rivenburg@latimes.com

[VoltaireBlue]

no offense, but don boles is a piece of shit that fucks 14 year olds, and gives them herpes. I know this because I know the guy that drums for 45 grave, and don begged to be in dinah's band. when dinah said no, he was like" well, you know I'm gonna fuck your daughter one of these days dinah" it was really gross... I hate that guy, but boy do I sure as fuck love the germs........

[EasyRider]

RE: I hate that guy, but boy do I sure as fuck love the germs........

The band, or the herpes? Just kidding.

I think the moment that a punk rocker starts using soap, he has to resign.

[One Eyed Cat]

no offense, but don boles is a piece of shit that fucks 14 year olds, and gives them herpes. I know this because I know the guy that drums for 45 grave, and don begged to be in dinah's band. when dinah said no, he was like" well, you know I'm gonna fuck your daughter one of these days dinah" it was really gross... I hate that guy, but boy do I sure as fuck love the germs........

Fuck that sux. I love the germs and 45 Grave. Glad Dinah told him to fuck right off. He should be shot if he messes with Dinah's family. The original bulletin was going around one of my lists. I didn't realize he was such a piece of waste.

OEC

P.S. I'll msg u on this sometime. A lot of people need to be set straight now.

[One Eyed Cat]

from la times

Don Bolles, arrested in Newport Beach on suspicion of possessing a date-**** drug, is freed after analysis shows it was only soap.

By Roy Rivenburg, Times Staff Writer
April 17, 2007

It was soap, not dope.

That's the verdict from additional testing of the peppermint-scented liquid that got punk rocker Don Bolles arrested on drug charges this month.

Bolles, 50, the legendary drummer for the Germs, spent three days in jail after Newport Beach police said they found GHB, the date-**** drug, inside a bottle of Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap in Bolles' 1968 Dodge van.

Police ran a field test on the yellowish goop after stopping Bolles for a broken taillight on April 4.

But a more sophisticated analysis by the Orange County Sheriff's Department crime lab detected no GHB in the soap, officials said Monday. As a result, all charges against Bolles will be dismissed, a spokeswoman for the Orange County district attorney's office said.

Meanwhile, the makers of Dr. Bronner's announced that other liquid soaps, including Neutrogena and Tom's of Maine, also can mistakenly register positive for GHB with the field test kit used by Newport Beach police.

Bronner's officials said they experimented with the ODV-brand NarcoPouch 928 test kit and various soaps over the weekend and would post a video of the results on their website next week.

"Police departments nationwide should immediately stop using the ODV field test for GHB," Bronner's president David Bronner said.

A spokesman for Armor Forensics, which manufactures the ODV test, said he wasn't familiar with the kit and couldn't immediately comment.

Bolles rose to fame in the late 1970s when he joined the pioneering L.A. punk band the Germs, a group credited with influencing generations of musicians and popularizing Mohawk haircuts.

The Germs dissolved in 1980 after 22-year-old singer Darby Crash committed suicide. Surviving members reunited in 2005 and plan to tour this summer.

Bolles, a Huntington Park resident whose real name is Jimmy Michael Giorsetti, took his stage name from an Arizona investigative journalist who was killed by a car bomb in 1976.

The drummer said he and his girlfriend, musician Cat Scandal, were driving to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting when Newport Beach police pulled over his van. Bolles said he always carries Dr. Bronner's organic soap, which he said helps keep his skin like that of a 15-year-old girl.

Bolles didn't return calls seeking comment Monday.

roy.rivenburg@latimes.com

Thanks for the clarification Karyn. People were claiming the incident involved hemp. Dr. Bronner's is a popular post-piercing soap in the Bay Area.

OEC

[Amelia G]

Fuck that sux. I love the germs and 45 Grave. Glad Dinah told him to fuck right off. He should be shot if he messes with Dinah's family. The original bulletin was going around one of my lists. I didn't realize he was such a piece of waste.

OEC

P.S. I'll msg u on this sometime. A lot of people need to be set straight now.

Nothing against Dinah. She's always been nice to me and to Blue Blood. But I wouldn't necessarily decide to hate someone based on any piece of Los Angeles deathrock band gossip. Hearing something from someone, who heard something from someone, who was really offended by someone else, because of some dispute where nobody got what they wanted, is not really the same thing as hearing something directly from the person or say their doctor and priest.

Even if someone really said something obnoxious like that, were they being punk rock or was it a sincere threat?

Basically, I wouldn't go passing a rumor like that around without knowing a heck of a lot more about it.

[One Eyed Cat]

Nothing against Dinah. She's always been nice to me and to Blue Blood. But I wouldn't necessarily decide to hate someone based on any piece of Los Angeles deathrock band gossip. Hearing something from someone, who heard something from someone, who was really offended by someone else, because of some dispute where nobody got what they wanted, is not really the same thing as hearing something directly from the person or say their doctor and priest.

Even if someone really said something obnoxious like that, were they being punk rock or was it a sincere threat?

Basically, I wouldn't go passing a rumor like that around without knowing a heck of a lot more about it.

I don't intend to. I'm just going to contact Voltaire to verify it. If it was verified by 45 Grave, I would then say something. I have passed along the article saying he's free, nothing more as yet. I still wouldn't hate the guy as long as he did not harm Dinah's family. It would not change my opinion of the germs or his drumming even.

OEC

[Amelia G]

I don't intend to. I'm just going to contact Voltaire to verify it. If it was verified by 45 Grave, I would then say something. I have passed along the article saying he's free, nothing more as yet.

OEC

But if she heard it from the drummer, who heard it from the singer, who may have been justifiably pissed off but might have recounted what was said out of context or without what the intention was behind it . . . I guess it just seems to me like a situation where the truth could easily be someone said the equivilent of "oy, oy, I'm going to fuck your mother in hell" or someone made a genuine horrifying threat with the intention of carrying it out or anything in between. And it would be kind of awful to pass along a version of the story which was too far in the wrong direction of what was said and what was meant and intended. Does that make sense? I guess I've just heard so many horrific rumors about so many people in the kinda dramatic Los Angeles deathrock scene and I sure hope only a small percentage are remotely true.

[One Eyed Cat]

But if she heard it from the drummer, who heard it from the singer, who may have been justifiably pissed off but might have recounted what was said out of context or without what the intention was behind it . . . I guess it just seems to me like a situation where the truth could easily be someone said the equivilent of "oy, oy, I'm going to fuck your mother in hell" or someone made a genuine horrifying threat with the intention of carrying it out or anything in between. And it would be kind of awful to pass along a version of the story which was too far in the wrong direction of what was said and what was meant and intended. Does that make sense? I guess I've just heard so many horrific rumors about so many people in the kinda dramatic Los Angeles deathrock scene and I sure hope only a small percentage are remotely true.

Fair Enough. I trust your integrity involving the LA scene.

OEC