# Roofies and victim-blaming: thanks small-town cops! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 18, 2013, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roofies-and-victim-blaming-thanks-small-town-cops/656075 "2013-04-18T22:28:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roofies-and-victim-blaming-thanks-small-town-cops/656075/21 "2013-04-19T02:49:54Z")
> [@ladyfoxfyre](#): > > Getting roofied is not an urban legend. Jesus Christ. > > Also, neither cocaine nor meth will flip a positive benzo screen. Meff. (sorry) ---
**Author:** ![colander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e8c25b/32.png) [@colander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colander)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roofies-and-victim-blaming-thanks-small-town-cops/656075/22 "2013-04-19T02:58:38Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > Nothing in the OP says it won’t be looked into. The person who takes initial reports usually isn’t the one who does the follow up. okay, but maybe they shouldn’t have put fucking **treis** on report taking duty??? ---
**Author:** ![Flywheel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Flywheel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flywheel)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roofies-and-victim-blaming-thanks-small-town-cops/656075/23 "2013-04-19T03:43:54Z")
> [@colander](#): > > But for Christ’s sake, can’t the police at least _pretend_ like they’re going to look into it? What’s the harm in that? Seriously, all they have to do is manage to say “We’ll look into it” in a sincere tone of voice and suppress their eye-rolling until the guy’s left the station. Is that asking too much? [Apparently so](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7acD4q0lp0). ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roofies-and-victim-blaming-thanks-small-town-cops/656075/24 "2013-04-19T03:59:41Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > Is there such thing as a bar that your wife and the cops would _recommend?_ > > We didn’t expect much from the cops going in. Mainly to put the place on their radar, for when something happens there again. What we didn’t expect (ironically the opposite of the Spanish Inquisition) was the uniquisitiveness. There’s a Venn Diagram joke in here somewhere…And trust me you don’t get to make those up very often. I too am a bit taken aback about the cop’s lack of interest. Yeah, chances are great that this crime will go unsolved and is unsolvable. But you’d think, particularly for “small town” cops they would be all over this shit like Barney Fiff after an unpaid parking ticket, because, hey, we gots us a real crime here fellas. ---
**Author:** ![drew870mitchell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drew870mitchell/32/3946_2.png) [@drew870mitchell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drew870mitchell)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roofies-and-victim-blaming-thanks-small-town-cops/656075/25 "2013-04-19T04:37:33Z")
You went to the cops in the same small town where the dive bar is? Call me suspicious but lots of small town cops would have a problem with an outsider coming in and saying one of the cop’s bartender friends roofied them. Cops of the Dope, would he have had any help if he just went to the cops in Atlanta or whatever the nearest large suburb was? Again knowing that the odds are slim, would he at least be able to file a report there, or would they tell him “no, go to the small town”? ---
**Author:** ![drew870mitchell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drew870mitchell/32/3946_2.png) [@drew870mitchell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drew870mitchell)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roofies-and-victim-blaming-thanks-small-town-cops/656075/26 "2013-04-19T04:38:54Z")
Interesting that me and **billfish78** have opposite intuitions about this kind of thing. Anyway, **Slithy Tove** does the coworker have any idea how long he spent passed out? ---
**Author:** ![Cicero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cicero/32/3594_2.png) [@Cicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cicero)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roofies-and-victim-blaming-thanks-small-town-cops/656075/27 "2013-04-19T04:57:40Z")
I can see both sides of the argument being presented here. (Well I think there are probably three arguments). Slithy Tove, does the guy have any past history of trashing himself at cheap dives-or any dives for that matter? And why did he go to a place out in the sticks- that seems a bit strange especially if you have to drive and you intend to have a couple of drinks. Also, did the police phrase the advice “You shouldn’t have been in the bar” or “Don’t go back to the bar”. I’m also wondering how he got to the car park. There just seems to be a part missing there. On the face of it though, the police may have been a bit more sympathetic such as saying they would look into it, and run a check on the bar tender (even if they didn’t intend to do so). ---
**Author:** ![emcee2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7bcc69/32.png) [@emcee2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emcee2k)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roofies-and-victim-blaming-thanks-small-town-cops/656075/28 "2013-04-19T06:17:05Z")
I was relieved to see this wasn’t another rape thread. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roofies-and-victim-blaming-thanks-small-town-cops/656075/29 "2013-04-19T07:10:39Z")
Why didnt the victim immediately go to the police? Why didnt another bar patron call the police upon seeing the victim passed out? Perhaps the cop was thinking the guy was trying to come up with a story for his wife? ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roofies-and-victim-blaming-thanks-small-town-cops/656075/30 "2013-04-19T10:30:48Z")
In case these qestions are more than rhetorical, I’d better provide more background. Why didn’t he go straight to the cops? It’s a white small town in the woods, and he’s Black. Things still work differently down here, to our transplant eyes. In some ways Black people still get treated like shit, and in other ways Blacks and whites live side-by-side in aspects where Northerner’s self-segregate. Why did he go to that bar? Another Southern thigns: people are very particular about chicken wings down here. Everyplace serves them, and I can’t tell the difference: it’s just a little knot of meat with sugar and pepper, but the locals are incredibly…you should pardon the expression…discriminating. So when a place creaed, to thier palate, great wings, they must go there. (And you never can tell where the great wings will appear: we were once in downtown Atlanta and asked a cop where the good wings were: he told out cab driver an adress, and when we arrived discovered that we’d benn sent to a transvestive bar. At first we thought the cop was just fucking with us…_until we tried the wings!)_ As I’ve stated, we didn’t expect much from the report. If I was a cop, I don’t knwo what I could have done (“sweated” the bartender until she agreed to give up her accomplice who’d swung the kosh out in the parking lot? Not in real life) We just wanted to get the place on the cops’ radar, because it will happen again. It’s the “blaming the vicitm” attitude I can’t accept. I’ve read that it’s only human nature to _need_ to see life as basically a fair proposition. So when misfortune befalls someone else (small children excepted) we naturally seek ways for it to have been at least in part their fault. ---
**Author:** ![tellyworth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/977dab/32.png) [@tellyworth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tellyworth)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roofies-and-victim-blaming-thanks-small-town-cops/656075/31 "2013-04-19T10:42:14Z")
> [@ladyfoxfyre](#): > > Getting roofied is not an urban legend. Jesus Christ. There was an [Australian study](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1742-6723.2009.01185.x/abstract) a few years back that suggests getting roofied in a nightclub is rarer than people believe: > [@](#): > > Results: Of the 97 alleged drink spiking cases included, there were only 9 plausible cases. We did not identify a single case where a sedative drug was likely to have been illegally placed in a drink in a pub or nightclub. Illicit drugs were detected in 28% of the study group. Ethanol was commonly detected, with the mean number of standard drinks consumed being 7.7 ± 3.9 SD, and the median blood ethanol concentration at the time of presentation was 0.096% (96 mg/dL). At follow-up there were no major sequelae and no police prosecutions. Thirty five per cent of patients still believed that they had been a victim of drink spiking irrespective of the results. ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roofies-and-victim-blaming-thanks-small-town-cops/656075/32 "2013-04-19T11:14:00Z")
> [@emcee2k](#): > > I was relieved to see this wasn’t another rape thread. Now lets not be too hasty. The passed out man may have been raped right there in the parking lot. But who would admit to a bit of soreness in _that_ area to their work-place? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![wheresmymind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/91b2a8/32.png) [@wheresmymind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wheresmymind)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roofies-and-victim-blaming-thanks-small-town-cops/656075/33 "2013-04-19T11:44:27Z")
I’m leaning towards **msmith** and **tellyworth**. All of the roofie stories I hear from friends and acquaintances are some version of “Went out to a bar, got good and drunk _but not that drunk_, passed out and woke up with no memory of what happened, maybe with some cuts and bruises that indicate stumbling around for a while.” What is always lacking is a plausible culprit. Were you talking to a stranger? Did you accept drinks from anyone, or leave your drink alone? Did anyone follow you when you left? The answer is always “No.” Well gee, do you think the reason you blacked out and woke up in your bed with your clothes half-off could in any way be related to the 7 beers and 4 shots of Rumplemintz I saw you consume between 11pm and 1:30am? I’m sure it does happen from time to time, but when I hear “I was roofied last night” my mind automatically changes it to “I drank more than I thought I did and got absolutely black-out drunk last night.” ---
**Author:** ![Filbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/filbert/32/3433_2.png) [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roofies-and-victim-blaming-thanks-small-town-cops/656075/34 "2013-04-19T12:01:14Z")
My housemate definitely got her drink spiked (though what with was never actually determined)- she was in a nighclub, had one (1) drink, and woke up in hospital the next morning. She’s always been pretty careless about trusting people and leaving drinks lying around. Incidently, she was thrown unconscious into the street by the bouncers who found her lying on the floor… Luckily she was there with a friend, who’d also only had one drink, who could a) confirm she’d not been drinking heavily, and b) phone an damn ambulance. It does happen sometimes. ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roofies-and-victim-blaming-thanks-small-town-cops/656075/35 "2013-04-19T13:28:42Z")
Female orgasms are also a myth. Pretty sure they don’t exist. I’ve never seen one anyway, and what would be the point? ---
**Author:** ![Kimballkid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b5a626/32.png) [@Kimballkid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimballkid)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roofies-and-victim-blaming-thanks-small-town-cops/656075/36 "2013-04-19T14:54:33Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > Barney Fiff Is that how you pronounce Fife after you’ve had too much meff? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![blindboyard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blindboyard/32/2833_2.png) [@blindboyard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blindboyard)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roofies-and-victim-blaming-thanks-small-town-cops/656075/37 "2013-04-19T15:43:05Z")
> [@Locrian](#): > > In Los Angeles, we get about 100 roofie victims on any given day. Picked up two of my female friends when they were discharged just this past year, so no urban legend. > > What I get from the OP is: guy tried to roofie a girl, got glasses mixed up, roofed himself, knew he might get caught at work and made up the story. There’s blaming the victim, and there’s blaming the victim, and you put the wife and those cops to shame. Well done indeed. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roofies-and-victim-blaming-thanks-small-town-cops/656075/38 "2013-04-19T16:10:30Z")
The cops should have been more concerned, or at least acted a little concerned even if they thought your friend was lying or mistaken (and it’s understandable that they’re suspicious). Them not even taking the effort to pretend to be a little concerned does make you wonder if they’ll completely ignore the report even if another similar report is made. > [@tellyworth](#): > > There was an [Australian study](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1742-6723.2009.01185.x/abstract) a few years back that suggests getting roofied in a nightclub is rarer than people believe: That might be the same one I read a few years back, although I’m sure that one also mentioned that alcohol itself is a common date-rape drug - as in, someone dumps a load of vodka into someone’s cocktail and they get way more drunk than they could reasonably expect. Using alcohol or other drugs to incapacitate a person is effectively the same as using roofies, it just doesn’t have the same exposure in the media so isn’t the first thing that springs to mind. ---
**Author:** ![miss\_elizabeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/838e76/32.png) [@miss\_elizabeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/miss_elizabeth)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roofies-and-victim-blaming-thanks-small-town-cops/656075/39 "2013-04-19T16:41:50Z")
I am utterly appalled at the victim blaming in this thread. It’s disgusting. I just… I don’t know what else to say. I am ashamed of this board. ---
**Author:** ![blindboyard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blindboyard/32/2833_2.png) [@blindboyard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blindboyard)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roofies-and-victim-blaming-thanks-small-town-cops/656075/40 "2013-04-19T17:18:58Z")
> [@Filbert](#): > > My housemate definitely got her drink spiked (though what with was never actually determined)- she was in a nighclub, had one (1) drink, and woke up in hospital the next morning. She’s always been pretty careless about trusting people and leaving drinks lying around. > > Incidently, she was thrown unconscious into the street by the bouncers who found her lying on the floor… Luckily she was there with a friend, who’d also only had one drink, who could a) confirm she’d not been drinking heavily, and b) phone an damn ambulance. > > It does happen sometimes. Was a blood test done? Someone just suddenly passing out could be the sign of any number of serious medical conditions, so one should have been done.. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roofies-and-victim-blaming-thanks-small-town-cops/656075.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roofies-and-victim-blaming-thanks-small-town-cops/656075.md?page=3)