# There is no 'date rape' drug that works in some of the ways reported is there? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 26, 2015, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-no-date-rape-drug-that-works-in-some-of-the-ways-reported-is-there/710895 "2015-01-26T01:10:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2017, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-no-date-rape-drug-that-works-in-some-of-the-ways-reported-is-there/710895/121 "2017-06-14T13:47:50Z")
When I was a teen the big thing was red devils. A couple of red devils ( barbiturate) and a couple of drinks the girls were in unable to resist guys. The funny thing was that it wasn’t usually the typical “bad boys” engaging in this form of rape which it is. Truth may never be known about Cosby but I suspect he used his power and influence to get the girls in a position to have some drinks and drugs and then they were caught off guard by how much he gave them. Still rape as far as I am concerned but girls looking for something from a powerful guy are easy targets. ---
**Author:** ![Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blue_blistering_barnacle/32/3386_2.png) [@Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blue_Blistering_Barnacle)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2017, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-no-date-rape-drug-that-works-in-some-of-the-ways-reported-is-there/710895/122 "2017-06-14T14:38:18Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > I would like a cite, preferably caselaw. Because generally once its established that a woman was drunk, then the question becomes was she so drunk as to be unable to consent. If the answer is no, then her drunkenness is irrelevant to the case. > > You might have mixed up the Accused’s intoxication which _can be_ a mitigating circumstance as to _quantum of sentence_ but not to _conviction_. > > That is true. Different doses affect different people…differently. As the Russians found out at the Moscow Theatre siege. > > That is why many people find this aspect of the story less compelling. It takes years of training to be able to administer sedatives safely and it still goes wrong. Its unlikely that a comedian looking to get laid would be able to do so, without blind luck and without leaving a trail of bodies if he persisted at the game. Acceptable risk is a funny thing. It means different thing to different people. Especially when those people don’t have a reliable figures for risk. Even when we get figures, it is human nature to fudge the numbers, adjusting the perceived risk for the situation. Mixing drugs and alcohol IS dangerous. Mixing drugs and drugs, too. We KNOW this. Many famous people have died this way, I’m sure it’s happened to quite a few unsung individuals. But, in fact, people DO mix drugs and alcohol all the time. Mostly, they do okay, occasionally they do not. We all do (or have done) risky things (such as get on the road) and not paid the ultimate price. Anesthesiology is about avoiding risk. If an anesthesiologist lost 0.1% of patients during elective surgeries nowadays, they would have something to answer for. People would ask questions and wonder if they cut corners. Their standards for risk are not at all like what passes for okay and n the common run. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2017, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-no-date-rape-drug-that-works-in-some-of-the-ways-reported-is-there/710895/123 "2017-06-14T16:39:51Z")
> [@Bill\_Door](#): > > I don’t know what anyone else is saying, but what I said years ago was that had Cosby used a drug so powerful that its effect could be felt after “one or two sips” on as many women as he is purported to have used it on he would have piled up corpses like cord wood. Some of Cosby’s victims are suffering from memory lapses subsequent to being dosed with the drug and are incorrectly reporting the speed of the effect. This seems incredibly likely to me. Memories are incredibly unreliable, when sober; drugged memories are nearly impossible to trust. That doesn’t mean the women are lying, or that they weren’t assaulted. A recollection of, “I realized I was drugged after one or two sips” is consistent with being given a relatively mild sedative (as in, virtually no risk of overdose) and being knocked out within a half hour or hour. Even though it’s an inaccurate memory, from what I understand, it’s the sort of memory such an experience could leave you with. It’s less consistent with being given no sedative, from what I understand. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2017, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-no-date-rape-drug-that-works-in-some-of-the-ways-reported-is-there/710895/124 "2017-06-14T16:42:56Z")
But Cosby admits to giving women sedatives. The question is whether these women knew what they were willingly taking or whether he forced it on them or slipped into their drinks without their knowledge. So the key question is whether their memories might be incorrect on that specific point. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2017, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-no-date-rape-drug-that-works-in-some-of-the-ways-reported-is-there/710895/125 "2017-06-14T17:44:20Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > But Cosby admits to giving women sedatives. The question is whether these women knew what they were willingly taking or whether he forced it on them or slipped into their drinks without their knowledge. So the key question is whether their memories might be incorrect on that specific point. On the specific point of whether they knew what they were taking? I don’t see that as the key point at all. If someone willingly takes a sedative, and then they’re incapacitated so they can’t consent, and then they’re sexually assaulted, does the willingness to take the sedative change the legal status of the assault? ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2017, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-no-date-rape-drug-that-works-in-some-of-the-ways-reported-is-there/710895/126 "2017-06-14T17:50:58Z")
Not directly. But again, we’re talking about memories of what happened many years ago, and assessing the exact incapacity level can be difficult at the time, let alone many years later. So it ends up resting to a large extent on how Cosby did it. If he slipped them these drugs unbeknownst to them, then this strongly argues that he was intending to incapacitate them, which supports the notion that such is in fact what happened. If he offered them some drug that they knowingly took, then that suggests that it was a relatively benign drug and was more about getting them relaxed and in the mood, as Cosby claims, which makes establishing incapacitation much harder. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2018, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-no-date-rape-drug-that-works-in-some-of-the-ways-reported-is-there/710895/127 "2018-04-20T18:23:38Z")
> [@](#): > > A pair of drug experts — one for the prosecution and one for the defense — spent Thursday debating one of the case’s enduring mysteries: What drug did he give his chief accuser on the night she says he molested her? > > Cosby has insisted he handed 1½ tablets of the over-the-counter cold and allergy medicine Benadryl to Andrea Constand to help her relax before their sexual encounter at his mansion outside Philadelphia. Constand testified he gave her three small blue pills that left her incapacitated and unable to resist as he molested her. > > The experts agreed that paralysis isn’t known to be a side effect of Benadryl, though its active ingredient can cause drowsiness and muscle weakness, among other side effects. > > Cosby’s expert, Harry Milman, said he didn’t know of any small blue pill that could produce the symptoms Constand described. > > The “Cosby Show” star has previously acknowledged under oath he gave quaaludes — a powerful sedative and 1970s-era party drug that’s been banned in the U.S. for more than 35 years — to women with whom he wanted to have sex, but denied having the Quaaludes by the time he met Constand in the early 2000s. > > Dr. Timothy Rohrig, a forensic toxicologist called by prosecutors, testified Thursday that quaaludes can make people sleepy. But he and Milman said the drug came in large white pills — not small and blue. [http://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/celebrity/judge-delays-ruling-on-cosby-accusers-confidante/ar-AAw5JlD?ocid=ientp](http://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/celebrity/judge-delays-ruling-on-cosby-accusers-confidante/ar-AAw5JlD?ocid=ientp) ---
**Author:** ![gren](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ce7236/32.png) [@gren](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gren)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2018, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-no-date-rape-drug-that-works-in-some-of-the-ways-reported-is-there/710895/128 "2018-04-20T18:48:35Z")
**Soma… _Carisoprodol_** Give someone who doesn’t take it 4x 350mg pills and they’re down… mind you, I’ve never done that but my own addiction issues had me scarfing 8 at a time and losing several days in the process… wicked stuff. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2018, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-no-date-rape-drug-that-works-in-some-of-the-ways-reported-is-there/710895/129 "2018-04-20T19:38:48Z")
Have there been any of these “rape drugs” studies that took into account multiple drugs? As in one drug would not be a problem, but add another and it could be. I’ve known people take tramadol and alcohol together and be a floppy sleepy doll. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-no-date-rape-drug-that-works-in-some-of-the-ways-reported-is-there/710895.md?page=6)