Drug question; Minor spoiler for "The Hangover"

Factual Questions
1

So my wife and I saw The Hangover last weekend.

Before I ask my question I’ll babble on for a bit so nobody accidentally mouses over the small spoiler that’s about to follow. It’s pretty minor as spoilers go, but I don’t blame anybody who wants to avoid any hint of a spoiler before seeing the film.

So. OK, here’s what I was wondering.

In the film, the characters try to piece together the events of the previous night because they can’t remember anything. Turns out the reason they can’t remember anything is that they (unwittingly) took a large dosage of “roofies” at the start of the evening. A doctor character says that memory loss is “one of the side effects” of taking roofies.

It’s not clear what time they took the roofies, but it appeared to be just after dark, and that scene is the last thing any of them remembers the following day. Yet, after taking the drugs, they were up and partying until at least 5 a.m., clearly awake and with at least some of their wits about them.

My question is, was this in any way an accurate portrayal of the effects of this drug? Could they really be awake and alert for several hours but essentially have their memory wiped the next day, or would they just get really groggy and pass out fairly quickly (the more likely scenario by my uneducated guess)?

2

“Roofies” is slang for Rohypnol. I’ve never (knowingly) taken the stuff, but at least judging by what Wikipedia has to say, the symptoms you describe (relative lucidity while under the influence followed by amnesia) do not seem terribly farfetched.

3

I had a follow-up question, on why the characters in the movie continually called it “rufinol” instead of Rohypnol, but wiki reveals that Rohypnol was Roche’s trade name for it. I guess it was a legal issue.

As for the memory loss, wiki mentions “anterograde amnesia”, but all the cites are in Swedish!

4

I was wondering about this too, but regarding the tiger, not the guys. They gave a roofies-laced piece of steak to the tiger to knock it out so they could sneak it out of the hotel. Why would they think it would knock out the tiger when they stayed awake all night, albeit with no ability to remember what they did? It seemed like it would have been just as easy to lace the steak with some Ambien, or a bunch of Tylenol PM’s or something, and would have made more sense.