Across social media platforms, young, largely college-aged men and women have begun to post in droves about having been suddenly afflicted on a night out with symptoms such as dizziness, amnesia, and extreme disorientation, only to wake up the next day to the discovery of a mysterious pin-prick residing on some inconspicuous body part. The explanation? That they have been injected with a date rape drug.
Over the past month alone, the UK police force have received a total of fifty-six official reports of this new terrifying unconventional form of drink spiking, and recently reports have begun to spill over into Ireland. These stories have already inspired a litany of macabre headlines, while all across the country student unions are setting up campaigns to target this new, terrifying form of attack.
Fortunately, this wave of reported injections has yet to be linked to any actual crimes of assault, rape, or theft; the most common motives for criminals who spike others’ drinks. In fact, as many are beginning to point out, the reported injections have yet to be linked to any particular date rape substance, either.
Cautiously, as a large number of scientists and health professionals across platforms such as the BBC have started to argue, the likelihood of someone having both the knowledge and the capability of injecting someone correctly with a typical date-rape substance is incredibly low. Aside from that, the idea that one could be pricked with a needle for a mere few seconds and the culprit could slink away, undetected, is also exceedingly unlikely. For most common date-rape drugs, such as GHB, one would have to either inject someone with quite a large needle, or would have to be able to keep the needle in someone for up to thirty seconds in order to administer enough of the drug for it to take effect.
Though these facts do not eliminate the possibility of the individual who may have both expertise in injecting substances and devious intent, or dismiss the stories of those who have claimed that this has happened to, they do raise questions around the method. Crudely speaking, for the average criminal, it would be far easier to simply slip something into someone’s drink.
In spite of the scepticism held by many within the scientific community, however, awareness is still being spread over the dangers of more established forms of administering date rape drugs. Over the past two months, nearly 200 incidents of drink spiking have been reported to the police in the UK; and while this number appears sinister, it is not an anomaly. Between 2015 and 2018, the number of cases of reported drink spiking in the UK more than doubled – with a disturbing seventy-one percent of victims being women. While it is difficult to ascertain the exact prevalence of the issue on a global scale, due to both lack of reporting and also the fact that many date rape substances leave the body before victims can be tested, it is clear that it is a troubling societal issue.
The raising of awareness around the problems of drink spiking – and even the more uncommon problem of injection spiking – is a positive thing. The issue with it is that that is where the discussion often stops. We, as a society, seem more comfortable talking about sexual assault when we transfer the blame from the real, most pervasive object of concern onto the foreign. GHB, ketamine, rohypnol; these are the sordid names of the infamous facilitators of date rape – made all the more threatening by their new, virally reported mode of administration. Linked to a far higher number of sexual assaults than any of these, however, is a far more familiar drug that if taken at too high a dose can cause alarmingly similar effects. Memory loss, increased suggestibility, lowered capacity for reason, reduced coordination, blurred vision, nausea. The scariest part? It’s often self-administered.
The substance which is being referred to is, of course, alcohol. And, as reported by the HSE, it is by far the most common drug involved in cases of sexual assault, with some studies revealing a staggering eighty-one per cent of attacks to have involved the drug to some capacity. In both the UK and Ireland, we are notorious for our reckless and indulgent attitude towards drinking, and it does not seem coincidental that it is here that these disturbing reports have originated. While the use of date rape drugs is very real, it is also uncommon. And if we are talking about date rape drugs being injected, it is even more unlikely. What is a nightly occurrence however, is the taking advantage of those who are overly inebriated, either just by alcohol, or the consumption of it in conjunction with other common party drugs.
According to a study conducted by both Trinity College Dublin and Maynooth University, fifty per cent of Irish women have suffered either sexual assault or harassment in their lifetime. It isn’t inconceivable that for many young women just embarking upon their first taste of independent adult life, that statistics such as these are in the forefront of their minds. The widespread reports of injected date rape drugs appears as a sort of collective societal deflection. By maintaining the focus on less common instances of drink spiking – or the illusive spiking by injection – we avoid talking about the vast majority of actual sexual assaults.
Date rape drugs, by their insidious nature, allow us to perpetuate the idea that only sensible, “innocent” women are truly blameless for their sexual assault. To insinuate that a woman has made herself more vulnerable by engaging in the very binge drinking culture that has become the norm for Irish society’s young adults carries the sting of accusation – that is they, to some degree, that are at fault.
Women feeling threatened on nights out is not a new, whirlwind story. So why is it only of interest when those afflicted have been attacked by a completely foreign substance? While it is encouraging to see so many women openly sharing their concerns over having been spiked over social media, it is also troubling that we seem our most comfortable discussing our fears over sexual assault in the context of a relatively unlikely scenario. We appear reluctant to accept the fact that even if it was we who made the decision to drink to intoxication, that we are still completely blameless for the acts of sexual predators.
In movies and TV, the act of getting with someone you otherwise didn’t want to while drunk is treated as a humorous trope. Uncomfortable sexual experiences that we endure under the heavy influence of alcohol are regarded as an inevitability, a “mistake” on our part, and those who assault us are forgiven merely on behalf of the inebriated state in which we found ourselves. These stereotypes are culminated most tragically in the fact that even cases of rape in which the victim was drinking are often the subject of suspicion and derision. Our culture is one in which alcohol is given a pedestal above other harmful substances, and our partaking in it, an interpreted slip of permission.
It is clear that we do need a campaign. But this campaign should be one centred on the most culpable of date rape drugs: alcohol. We need to teach people that its effects can be unpredictable. That our levels of tolerance towards it are not stagnant. That yes, drink, despite being both legal and culturally pervasive, can also leave us as defenceless as if we had been spiked.
The purpose of the discussion is never to place the blame onto the victims of these crimes, regardless of what substances they have consumed. However, by frantically sounding the alarm over less common modes of assault, we turn our faces from the very drinking culture in which we all participate.