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Date Rape Drugs - Medhunters Medical Community
By Cynthia M. Piccolo
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In the late 1980s, I had a summer job at a sexual assault crisis center. One of my duties was to enter files of sexual assault victims into a database. While I remember some women saying they were drunk at the time their assault occurred (and indeed, alcohol continues to be a date rape "drug," with some statistics saying that 50% of women raped by acquaintances reported being drunk at the time), none reported having been drugged. But since the late 1990s, things have changed:

"Four men were sentenced to prison Thursday after being convicted in one of the nation's first trials involving a death linked to a date-rape drug. The three men who were convicted of manslaughter were sentenced to up to 15 years in prison; a fourth man convicted of being an accessory to manslaughter after the fact was sentenced to up to five years. Prosecutors alleged the men gave [15-year-old victim] Samantha a soft drink secretly spiked with GHB during a Jan. 16, 1999, party She died the next day. Her friend Melanie Sindone, now 16, also ingested the drug [and] was briefly in a coma, but survived." (CBSNews.com, April 12, 2000)
"Harvard Crimson said two Harvard students had been treated for Rohypnol poisoning after attending off-campus parties. Rohypnol is frequently used as a date-rape drug because it induces unconsciousness within minutes. Some estimates place cases of Rohypnol-induced sexual assault in the United States at 5,000 this year alone." (MIT News Office, November 5, 2003)
"A Vancouver man faces a criminal charge after his three-year-old girl drank from a water bottle spiked with a so-called date-rape drug. The toddler was playing in her home on Vancouver's west side on Sunday when she suddenly appeared to be having a seizure. After calling emergency services, the girl's father realized that she had taken a drink from a water bottle containing GHB, best known as a date-rape drug." (CBC.ca, December 14, 2004)
"Traces of a 'date rape' drug were found in blood samples from two of the nine women who were hospitalized after attending University of Colorado fraternity parties last month, police said Thursday. One of the doses was potentially fatal." (TheDenverChannel.com, October 6, 2005)
"Two weeks ago, emergency room doctors told Alexandra, 19, she likely ended up in the intensive care unit because an amaretto and Coke she was drinking at a party the night before was spiked with what is often called a 'date rape drug.'" (The Journal (Queen's University), December 1, 2005)

Stories similar to the above excerpts are seen regularly in the media in communities in the United States, Canada, and abroad. Of course, despite the use of the term "date rape drug,"

Comment from Pam
It is sad how this happens...
Comment from Blaike Ashten Rutherford
I learned alot of informtion, just from this source. I really apperciate everything I learned on this website. I had to do a project and report over the date rape drugs section and this article helped a whole lot. I once was a victim but now I know tht im not alone.!!!!
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