Are date rape spiked drinks an urban myth?



Last week, academics concluded that women who claim they've been drugged and raped were usually just drunk...



When she recalls the night she went off with a stranger, Daniella swears blind someone slipped something into her drink.



How else could a man she never met before have managed to get the 29-year-old legal secretary from the nightclub in Bradford where they met, into his car?

How to explain the memories that still haunt her - shameful images of herself, partially clothed, writhing around on the back seat?

The cold scientific reality is that while fear of drink spiking is still rife among women, experts claim it hardly ever happens in practice (photo posed by models)

'I'm pretty certain we didn't have sex. I think I'd have known,' she says, 'But it's all a bit blurred. I'm also not sure what did happen.'

But she is certain that she would not have consented to whatever happened.



And she blames her inability to say no, or to struggle, on whatever it was the man put in her drink. 'I've been drunk before and it didn't feel anything like this,' she says.

'I felt really nauseous and confused. He bought me a couple of drinks from the bar while I was dancing, so he had plenty of opportunity to put something in them.'

Heaven forbid that it could have been the drink itself.

The truth of what really happened will never be known. Daniella never reported the incident and was never tested for signs of the Rohypnol she believes she was given.

And despite the sickening events she recounts, the cold scientific reality is that while fear of drink spiking is still rife among women, experts claim it hardly ever happens in practice.

A toxicology expert from the Forensic Science Service, which analyses evidence for the police, told the Mail he had come across only one sample of blood or urine containing Rohypnol - the most commonly talked about 'date-rape' drug - in the past decade.

'The reality is drink spiking is very, very rare', said senior forensic scientist Michael Scott-Ham. 'Alcohol itself is the problem.'

A controversial study, published last week, claimed drink spiking is an 'urban myth', a modern scapegoat for a generation of women who cannot face the fact that the vast amounts of alcohol many are imbibing could be in any way responsible for a loss of control, which can have devastating consequences.

A small kit designed to detect the presence of 'date rape drugs' was launched in 2004, but experts claimed last week that drink spiking is an 'urban myth'

'Something very curious is going on,' says Dr Adam Burgess, who spent a year researching the issue at the University of Kent's school of social policy for a project funded by the British Academy.

'How can you account for this great big gap between lack of any evidence for drink spiking and what so many women believe is going on?

'There's a displacement exercise going on here. Why, despite all the evidence, do women so readily blame the spiker rather than the amount of alcohol they are drinking? That is the real issue here.'

Laura, a 24-year-old PR assistant from Bristol, also blames a 'drink spiker' for a disastrous night out a year ago. She and a group of female colleagues decided to go out for 'a couple of drinks after work to unwind'.

She continues: 'After we'd shared a few bottles of wine between us, we decided we would go into town for a bit of a dance.



'I can drink a lot, so I wasn't too worried about getting out of control on a weeknight.

'We went in and got one drink each and then I remember a guy chatting to me. He was obviously on a night out with friends and they all looked quite cute. I happily flirted with him.'

Could it be that women instinctively feel that if they admit to themselves how much they had drunk they would also be admitting they were somehow to blame for putting themselves at risk?

By now, a few of her colleagues had gone home, but Laura stayed out.

'I was enjoying dancing and chatting to this guy. But then it all becomes a bit hazy. I remember having a drink in my hand and putting it down when I was dancing.



'I ended up getting in a taxi with him. I didn't even say goodbye to my friends.'

She went back to the man's house. 'I know we didn't have sex, but we did do other stuff. I woke up the next day horrified.

'I would never sleep with a guy on the first date and yet here I was, in a stranger's bed, and I was naked.'

She called in sick and took a taxi home. 'I crawled into my bed. I felt so sick and confused. My first thought was that my drink had been spiked.



'I never drink myself into oblivion and I never usually forget whole parts of the night.'

At the same time, however, Laura admits she was drunk and had barely eaten anything before going out.



'I told a couple of girls at work what had happened and one of them told me that I was completely smashed at the nightclub.'

Could it be that women instinctively feel that if they admit to themselves how much they had drunk they would also be admitting they were somehow to blame for putting themselves at risk?

Believing your drink was spiked transfers the blame to a malevolent, external force, something which women have no control over. It shifts responsibility.

Alcohol expert Robin Touquet, Professor of Emergency Medicine at Imperial College, London, points out: 'Women are demonising so- called drink spiking rather than facing up to the fact that drinking too much alcohol can put them in a highly dangerous situation.



'Most of the time, drink spiking does not happen. It always comes down to booze.



'Alcohol is a drug and in excess it adversely affects every system in the body. The message to women is: "Don't make yourself vulnerable."'

Forensic scientist Michael Scott-Ham agrees: 'The biggest problem is that a lot of people get very drunk very quickly and sometimes they are taken advantage of in this situation.

Experts claim that the real issue is the amount of alcohol women are drinking (photo posed by models)

'It's still illegal and it's still wrong, but it's unlikely to have anything to do with drink spiking.'

Dr Burgess and his team interviewed 236 women at three universities in Kent, Sussex and London during 2006 and 2007.



They sought to investigate students' knowledge of 'date rape' drugs, whether they or someone they knew had been a victim and whether they had changed their behaviour in relation to the perceived threat.

Only ten out of the 236 claimed to have experienced drink spiking personally and none had been subject to sexual assault.



Yet 55 per cent claimed to have known someone whose drink had been spiked.

But among respondents, 75 per cent believed having a drink spiked with drugs was a more significant risk factor for sexual assault than drinking alcohol or taking drugs, despite the fact that police believe the opposite is true.

Another pivotal study offers further evidence that alcohol is the drug to be guarded against.



The study, conducted by the Forensic Science Service in 2005, examined 1,014 cases of 'drug facilitated sexual assault' by analysing blood and urine samples from victims gathered by police forces in England and Wales.

In only 21 - about 2 per cent - were traces of drugs found that the women had not taken voluntarily.



These included Ecstasy, gammahydroxybutyrate (GHB) and tranquillisers. Alcohol was picked up in 46 per cent of cases. Illegal drugs such as cannabis and cocaine were in 34 per cent of cases.

'Alcohol companies spend £100 million a year on advertising. As a society, we are constantly lambasted with the sophisticated image of quality wines, malt whiskies and real ale'

But claims that the 'drink spiker' is little more than a modern-day bogeyman are met with derision by Graham Rhodes, who set up The Roofie Foundation - a support group for women who believe they are the victims of drug rape. Roofie is the street name for Rohypnol.

He describes Dr Burgess's research as 'absolute garbage'.

'We have around 700 new victims every year,' he claims. 'To them, it's a life-changing thing and there's very few organisations that can help them.'

Mr Rhodes insists that alcohol consumption and drink spiking are 'two very separate issues'.

And yet he acknowledges: 'I believe that alcohol consumption puts both males and females at risk. It's always been a problem.



'But we exist to support victims of drink spiking and drug rape. It's not our job to point the finger at people who drink too much. I don't think it's a valid statistical exercise.'

According to Mr Rhodes's own statistics - which are often repeated by manufacturers of so-called antispiking devices, such as plastic Topp Stoppas and Spikeys (which fit to the tops of bottles so nothing can be slipped in) and The Drink Detective (a testing strip that changes colour if it detects drugs) - there were 627 victims of drug rape and sexual abuse reported during 2007.

But none of these reports has been verified by police.

On the website for a product called Drink Spike Detector, it states: 'Please bear in mind that 84 per cent of date drug rape cases are never reported' - a statistic which is quite clearly impossible to substantiate.

According to Mr Rhodes: 'There's no way of proving your drink has been spiked unless a major crime is committed against you and then the police will take a forensic test.'

Instead, Mr Rhodes decides who among callers to his Foundation is a victim of drug rape.

Not surprisingly, any discussion of the relationship between fear of drink spiking and alcohol consumption in women is controversial

'We talk to them and listen to them and try and come to terms with what's happened to them.



'If they say "I lost track after 15 pints or after three bottles of wine and a bottle of vodka", we put a very severe question mark against them. We say: "It may have been the alcohol."

'But if the person swears that they have had two glasses of wine, there is a very, very large possibility that something else has happened to them.'

Inevitably, this unorthodox method of compiling data ignores the fact that most people underestimate the amount of alcohol they consume on a night out.

Not surprisingly, any discussion of the relationship between fear of drink spiking and alcohol consumption in women is controversial.



Claims that alcohol - not spiked drinks - is women's true enemy are seen as politically incorrect by those who say they foster an attitude that women who are sexually assaulted are somehow 'asking for it'.

It is clear that those women who do contact The Roofie Foundation are genuinely distressed about their ordeal. And yet nearly all of them mention alcohol when telling their stories.

One woman recounts: 'My police hair strand test came back negative for drugs. The blood and urine tests were also negative.



'I don't understand it, because my memory was wiped and I was passed out for hours on two separate days.

'But because I had a spliff or two and a few glasses of vodka, the police are trying to imply that the cannabis must have been so strong that when mixed with drink it caused this response. I know this is not true, but I can't prove it.'

Another woman recalls a night at the home of a female friend and her husband: 'We were all drinking and she passed out and he took her to bed.



'Me and him then carried on drinking. He strangely started hitting on me and I laughed it off and told him "no" very plainly, and then he made me a drink.

'I have no idea how or what happened next, only that I woke up naked in the morning feeling like I'd had sex, with him next to me.

'I am so ashamed and mortified. I feel sick and I just can't believe it happened.



'This is so utterly out of character for me to do anything like this and I am so miserable. I don't want to tell anyone, I just want to make this better.

'I have been drunk many times. But this wasn't drunk, it was some dark, scary place that I never want to go back to.'

There is little doubt the dangers of excessive drinking are underestimated by women.

Since the Eighties, alcohol consumption among females has risen dramatically.



The number of women drinking at harmful levels - 35 units or more per week - has risen from 3 per cent in 1990 to 17 per cent in 2003, according to the Office for National Statistics. The recommended limit for women is 14 units a week.

Dr Burgess, the author of the University of Kent study, says talk of blame is 'unhelpful'.

'It's not a question of apportioning blame and I'm not suggesting that when women blame drink spiking there's a dishonest process going on here,' he says.

'We all do things like this. It's a way of controlling anxiety. It's common human behaviour.'

Fear of drink spiking became prevalent in the Nineties, first in the U.S. and then in the UK and Australia. Dr Burgess says it is virtually unheard of in other countries.

'The reason drink spiking is an issue in these countries is not because it is actually happening, it's due to changes in attitude towards drinking.



Public drinking in Britain has been de-stigmatised. Women are now confronted with a situation where there are no rules or regulations about drinking.

'Those women we interviewed who had limited their alcohol consumption spoke of an unrelenting pressure to drink.



'You have to negotiate the whole thing yourself. There are no boundaries to guide you any more. It's a very stressful situation to be in.

'But being vigilant against the "exotic" risk of drink spiking does not require a significant disruption to social routine.



'The mundane risks associated with drinking are a different matter.'

Dr Burgess's stance is backed by Professor Touquet.

'What has changed is that, in society as a whole, you used to be laughed at, and indeed rather despised, if you drank too much.



'Now, it seems to be a cult among students and a rite of passage to get absolutely legless.

'Alcohol companies spent £100 million a year on advertising. As a society, we are constantly lambasted with the sophisticated image of quality wines, malt whiskies and real ale.



'Everybody is encouraging people to drink. It's the culture that's the problem.'

This is further supported by the Suzy Lamplugh Trust, which campaigns to improve personal safety among men and women.

'The real threat to people's safety,' it says in a statement, 'is not what is put in your drink, but the drink itself.



'Research has identified that alcohol is far more likely to be a factor in rape and sexual assault cases than drug spiking.'

Dr Burgess believes while fear of drink spiking prevails, too little attention will be paid to how much women are drinking. The danger is that underestimating the danger will put women at further risk.

Because whatever the risks of the drink spiker coming after you - the chances are that alcohol will get to you first.