I think it is. According to all the things I have read, there are people who do not realise how alcohol works on the body.
I have only ever heard anecdotes about drink spiking happening. Never any real evidence.
SMH
I define drink spiking as - a drink is spiked it means that drugs (illicit or prescription) have been added to the drink without the person’s knowledge
Just to clarify, you think there has never been a single case of anyone adding a drug to someone else’s drink without their knowledge in order to in some way incapacitate them and take advantage of that? Ever?
Yep. That’s what the OP is saying. Exactly. :rolleyes:
I think we should talk about this over a drink, ok?
Hey - look over there…
I did not realise I said that. What I am saying is that there comes a bit of hysteria every few years about an ‘epidemic’ of drink spiking. Every study shows that there is no ‘epidemic’ of drink spiking, yet there is a widely held view that there is an ‘epidemic’.
Often, whenever I tried to discuss this with people, there would always be someone who said - ‘It happened to my cousin, sister, girlfriend…; are you calling her a liar!’
It is like an urban legend.
I suggest you read ‘A Long Strange Trip: The Inside History of the Grateful Dead’ by Dennis McNally. A fantastic read about the Dead and the 60’s, and I swear somebody is getting dosed (with LSD) every 2-3 pages.
So yes, according to that - which is recognized as probably the most honest and accurate history of the Dead - ‘spiking’ is, or at least was, VERY common at least in one subculture at one point.
There’s one anecdote - from very late in their career, early 90’s I think - when they were meeting with some top brass from Arista Records at a breakfast meeting complete with OJ and coffee. The meeting didn’t last long, and as Jerry and Mickey (I think it was them) left, the one exec turned to another and commented (on the record) “There’s no way in hell I’m drinking that juice”
So they had a pretty heavy rep as far as that went…
A myth is probably too strong a word, I’m sure it happens. But there is evidence to suggests its not as widespread as the media and public seem to believe. Here is one example from the UK:
I think I get what you’re saying: you’re saying it happens sometimes, but not very often. Is that right?
That study says that out of 1,000 date rape victims, 20 of them had sedatives in their system. It seems likely to me, although the article gives no evidence either way, that sedated date rape victims have very often been sedated by their attacker, rather than being self-medicated. A third of the date rape victims had drunk until they’d passed out. (Stats are rough).
One way of looking at this is that less than 2% of date rapes happen due to sedatives. That’s valid. It’s also valid, however, to point out that these attacks do happen.
In 2006, there were 92,455 forcible rapes reported to law enforcement. I’m going to be conservative with my numbers here: although there is considerable debate about whether rapes are over-reported or under-reported, I’m going to pretend that rapes were reported exactly accurately.
Furthermore, 77% of rapes are acquaintance rapes, committed by folks known by the victim. Here I’ll be less conservative and more speculative: while some rohypnol rapes are committed by strangers, plenty of acquaintance rapes are not committed as date rapes of the sort covered by your referenced study. Let’s say, then, that 50% of the 77% of the 92,455 rapes in the US in 2006 were date rape situations. That’s 35,595 rapes.
2% of that is 712 rapes in which the victim was sedated.
How many uses of rohypnol would be necessary before you would declare it to be an epidemic? Where have you seen the word “epidemic” used to describe the use of date rape drugs? Do you think that this number of sedation-related rapes is too low to warrant warning potential victims about the danger?
Daniel
I have interacted with many people whose reports I have no reason to disbelieve who had rohypnol or other substances put in their drinks. It was extremely upsetting for them and some were raped (or rolled).
When I was a teen, a friend’s brother almost certainly put LSD in my drink (he never copped to it, but that is consensus). I had one glass of wine, yet hallucinated and was disoriented for hours. It was the most frightening experience I’ve ever had, and I would have been in no position to take care of myself.
Whether there’s an “epidemic” I couldn’t say, but it is not an urban myth.
People spike drinks for reasons other than to have sex with the one they are spiking. I know a few girls who’ve had their drinks spiked by guys who had no sexual intentions (or didn’t even interact with them after the spiking) or by other girls. I would guess there are plenty of instances where the potential rapist has second thoughts or otherwise can’t go through with the rape, but still does the spiking, and probably quite often people spike drinks just to mess with people.
There was a case last year in a bar up the street from where I live. A couple was on a date, and when the woman went to the restroom, the waitress spotted the guy dropping something into her drink. The waitress told the bartender, and they arranged a pretext to take away the drink. When the woman ordered another drink, they saw the guy spike that one too. At that point, one of them called the police, while the other took the woman aside and told her what was going on. The police caught the guy leaving the bar, and the drinks turned out to have been spiked with a number of drugs, including Xanax and one of the date rape drugs.
No cite, but I do have the hard copy news article around somewhere.
It’s not that drink spiking is so common, it’s that it’s possible, and worth looking out for under certain circumstances.
This has happened here in my town, where people have been drugged at bars almost at random. Not very often, but it does happen.
This sort of thing is so hard to figure. I mean, there are probably at least a few women who got drunk and had sex—no ‘date rape’ or other drugs needed. Later, they’re remorseful and decide ‘Hey, I’m not usually like that. He must have spiked my drink!’ OTOH you may have cases where the date rape drug is so successful that the crime goes completely undetected. Maybe he used a condom, she didn’t get pregnant or an STD.
I assume a newly-deflowered virgin would be sore the next day. I once dated a woman who hadn’t been in a relationship for years, and after we did the mcnasty, she said she was sore the next day (no acrobatic sex or marathons or anything—just sort of regular stuff, maybe 15 minutes of the deed itself).
I guess my question for the ladies would be about their physiology. Let’s suppose you’re sexually active. Maybe you and the bf are having sex once a day. If someone slipped you a date rape drug and had sex with you, would you know it from how your privates felt the next day? Any other telltale signs, e.g. smells etc.?
I’d expect some itching from semen and/or vaginal fluid or blood that hadn’t been washed off, but if he wore a condom and wiped me afterwards, then honestly, no, I wouldn’t be able to tell. If it were a fertile time of the month and I had lots of cervical mucus present, I probably wouldn’t be able to tell even if he didn’t clean me off afterwards.
There is a funky post-sex smell from latex condoms, but if I’m having daily sex already, I’d probably attribute it to that sex.
I’ve been drunk plenty of times, and I’ve been slipped Ketamine once. Lemme tell you, there’s no mistaking Special K for drunk. Or for any other drug, for that matter. The astounding thing about Ketamine is how consistent its effects are - describing what I experienced to other people who have (knowingly) taken it yields identical symptoms. Unlike, say, marijuana, which makes some people sleepy and some giggley and some paranoid, or LSD, which makes some people see things and some people hear things and some people really chatty and can vary widely between people or from one trip to another.
I was lucky - I had protective girl friends with me who kept the two extremely interested gentlemen at bay so they couldn’t take me wherever they had intended to take me. If I had been at the bar (a gay bar, at that) alone, there’s no doubt they would have been able to assault me.
You didn’t realize you said that? Your OP calls drink spiking a “myth” and you said that
Nothing about “epidemics” or anything of that kind. That sort of sounds like you’re saying it never happens to me too. Not that it’s necessarily your fault or that it’s what you intended, but your OP was short, and that’s all we had to go on.
Like I say above, it sure sounded like it to me. Enough so that I had to think to myself, “this can’t be what he’s really saying, is it? There’s got to be more to it than that…”
To expand on WhyNot’s answer, Rohypnol does not show up in tox screens very easily. Urine or blood has to be taken less than 72 hours after the drug is ingested, and many victims of sexual assault don’t report at all or take several days. If they’ve already lost memories due to the anterograde amnesiac properties of Rohypnol or other similar sedatives, they may not put the clues together.
Just because a woman hasn’t had a penis in her vagina for a while doesn’t mean she’ll detect the signs that one was there while she was unconscious. Most women masturbate, and that often means penetration with a dildo or other object. The vagina is extremely elastic and heals quickly. Also, if the man’s penis isn’t very large or he is “gentle” with her, there may be no reason for her to think she’s been raped.
Well, no reason except a gut feeling from subconsciously adding up all the clues that Something Is Not Right.
Whatever blinkingblinking meant by “a myth”, I would have no trouble believing that most people who think their drinks were spiked are mistaken. On the other hand, I am sure it does occur from time to time. And perhaps it is a good thing that people who get unexpectedly dizzy from drinking start to worry about it.
I was in a bar in New Orleans, talking to a fairly new acquaintance who was definitely flirting with me, and while she was off to the restroom, a guy came up and offered to sell me Rohypnol so that I could “seal the deal.” I told him that nothing along those lines was on the agenda for the evening, and even if it were I certainly wouldn’t drug and rape my friend. I’m not sure why, but he thought that this meant I was a good prospect for a sale. He continued to press the point until she returned, at which point she asked “who’s this?” I said “Oh, he wants to sell me roofies so I can drug you and rape you later.” The bartender overheard (or finally stopped ignoring) this last bit, and the jerk was out on his ass in a moment.
A few things that don’t necessarily make this a spiking story:
(1) I don’t know what he was selling. He said it was Rohypnol but it could have been aspirin, ecstasy, or a sugar pill.
(2) I don’t know whether he was selling it because he had made sales before (because there was a market) or because he had heard the same stories the OP has heard (because he believed there was a market).
blinkingblinking, I somewhat agree with you. I’ve read and heard many reports of drinking spiking where symptoms such as dizziness, confusion and vomiting are attributed to drink spiking and wondered if perhaps it wasn’t simply an excess of alcohol to blame, but the victims always seem to insist that it must have been something slipped into their drink and there is no way that they simply had too much to drink.
In particular, any situation where the alleged perp is going to be unable to get their victim alone doesn’t really make sense - I could understand a sex fiend drugging a woman if he thought he could get her alone to assault her, but many times the “victim” is a young woman out with a group of friends and it seems unlikely that someone would think he could spirit her away without being noticed by other members of her party. There are probably some weirdos who get their kicks from rendering women out of control in a public place, but surely they aren’t as prevalent in society as the “epidemic” of drink spikings would suggest.
To be clear about it: I don’t believe that drink spiking never happens. Just that it is less common than people think. And, of course, despite my “he=perpetrator” “she=victim” scenarios above, either gender could be either role.
None of the ERs in the Denver Metro area will detect Rohypnol on a standard tox screen. Same thing with GHB.
St. Urho
Paramedic