Are date rape spiked drinks an urban myth?

[First half of long article quoted below -- more at link.]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1225854/Are-date-rape-spiked-drinks-urban-myth.h
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By Barbara Davies
Last updated at 10:55 PM on 06th November 2009

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.

'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.

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