Date rape drug
Encyclopedia
A date rape drug is any drug that can be used to assist in the execution of a sexual assault
Sexual assault
Sexual assault is an assault of a sexual nature on another person, or any sexual act committed without consent. Although sexual assaults most frequently are by a man on a woman, it may involve any combination of two or more men, women and children....

, such as date rape
Date rape
"Date rape", often referred to as acquaintance rape, is an assault or attempted assault usually committed by a new acquaintance involving sexual intercourse without mutual consent....

. Drugs used to facilitate rape may have sedative
Sedative
A sedative or tranquilizer is a substance that induces sedation by reducing irritability or excitement....

, hypnotic
Hypnotic
Hypnotic drugs are a class of psychoactives whose primary function is to induce sleep and to be used in the treatment of insomnia and in surgical anesthesia...

, dissociative, and/or amnesiac
Anterograde amnesia
Anterograde amnesia is a loss of the ability to create new memories after the event that caused the amnesia, leading to a partial or complete inability to recall the recent past, while long-term memories from before the event remain intact. This is in contrast to retrograde amnesia, where memories...

 effects, and can be added to a food or drink without the victim's knowledge.

The act of adding such substances to drinks is known as "drink spiking". The reasons for drink spiking range from personal amusement or maliciousness to theft or sexual assault.

Types of drugs

The three most commonly used drugs for date rape are alcohol and two prescription-strength sleep aids.
The two prescription drugs are GHB
Gamma-Hydroxybutyric acid
γ-Hydroxybutyric acid , also known as 4-hydroxybutanoic acid and sodium oxybate when used for medicinal purposes, is a naturally occurring substance found in the central nervous system, wine, beef, small citrus fruits, and almost all animals in small amounts. It is also categorized as an illegal...

, also known as gamma-hydroxybutyric acid, and benzodiazepines (such as flunitrazepam
Flunitrazepam
Flunitrazepam is marketed as a potent hypnotic, sedative, anticonvulsant, anxiolytic, amnestic, and skeletal muscle relaxant drug most commonly known as Rohypnol...

, also known as Rohypnol or "roofies"); however, an American 1997 study showed that alcohol
Alcoholic beverage
An alcoholic beverage is a drink containing ethanol, commonly known as alcohol. Alcoholic beverages are divided into three general classes: beers, wines, and spirits. They are legally consumed in most countries, and over 100 countries have laws regulating their production, sale, and consumption...

 still remains the drug most frequently implicated in substance-assisted sexual assault.

Alcohol

Alcohol remains the most commonly used date rape drug, being readily available as well as legal. Many assailants use alcohol because their victims often willingly imbibe it, and can be encouraged to drink enough to lose inhibitions or consciousness. Even if the victim agrees to sex, the act may be considered rape in some jurisdictions if the victim's judgment was impaired or incapacitated by alcohol. Some assailants have committed "rapes of convenience" whereby they have assaulted a victim after she or he had become unconscious from drinking too much. A study in the UK found that only 2 percent of a pool of 1,014 rape victims had their drinks spiked with sedatives. Another UK study of 75 patients, most of them women, who thought their drinks had been tampered with in pubs or clubs found that none had been given a surreptitious drug. They had simply become intoxicated
Drunkenness
Alcohol intoxication is a physiological state that occurs when a person has a high level of ethanol in his or her blood....

. Similarly, a 2009 Australian study concluded that, of 97 patients admitted to hospital claiming to have had their drinks spiked, none had in fact been drugged.

Benzodiazepines

Benzodiazepine
Benzodiazepine
A benzodiazepine is a psychoactive drug whose core chemical structure is the fusion of a benzene ring and a diazepine ring...

s are drugs used to treat anxiety
Anxiety
Anxiety is a psychological and physiological state characterized by somatic, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral components. The root meaning of the word anxiety is 'to vex or trouble'; in either presence or absence of psychological stress, anxiety can create feelings of fear, worry, uneasiness,...

, panic attacks, insomnia
Insomnia
Insomnia is most often defined by an individual's report of sleeping difficulties. While the term is sometimes used in sleep literature to describe a disorder demonstrated by polysomnographic evidence of disturbed sleep, insomnia is often defined as a positive response to either of two questions:...

, and several other conditions. Some benzodiazepines used to treat insomnia possess powerful sedative, motor-impairing, and strong amnestic properties. Flunitrazepam
Flunitrazepam
Flunitrazepam is marketed as a potent hypnotic, sedative, anticonvulsant, anxiolytic, amnestic, and skeletal muscle relaxant drug most commonly known as Rohypnol...

 (Rohypnol) is popularly held to be a date rape drug although little evidence exists for its use for this purpose in the UK.

Though flunitrazepam
Flunitrazepam
Flunitrazepam is marketed as a potent hypnotic, sedative, anticonvulsant, anxiolytic, amnestic, and skeletal muscle relaxant drug most commonly known as Rohypnol...

 (Rohypnol) is often cited as a date rape drug because of its high potency, strong effects and the ability to cause strong amnesia during its duration of action, investigations into its actual use as a date rape drug have contradicted popular belief. According to research conducted by Michael Robertson from the San Diego Medical Examiner's office and Dr. Mahmoud El Sohly of El Sohly Laboratories, test results indicated that flunitrazepam was only used in around 1% of reported date rapes according to Robertson and 0.33% according to urine lab tests done by El Sohly. In fact, the benzodiazepines midazolam
Midazolam
Midazolam is a short-acting drug in the benzodiazepine class developed by Hoffmann-La Roche in the 1970s. The drug is used for treatment of acute seizures, moderate to severe insomnia, and for inducing sedation and amnesia before medical procedures. It possesses profoundly potent anxiolytic,...

 and temazepam
Temazepam
Temazepam is an intermediate-acting 3-hydroxy benzodiazepine. It is mostly prescribed for the short-term treatment of sleeplessness in patients who have difficulty maintaining sleep...

 were the two most common benzodiazepines utilized for date rape.

GHB/GBL/1,4 BDO

Gamma-hydroxybutyrate (GHB) has effects that are very similar to those of alcohol. According to the US Drug Enforcement Administration
Drug Enforcement Administration
The Drug Enforcement Administration is a federal law enforcement agency under the United States Department of Justice, tasked with combating drug smuggling and use within the United States...

:
"Victims may not be aware that they ingested a drug at all. GHB and its analogue
Analog (chemistry)
In chemistry, a structural analog , also known as chemical analog or simply analog, is a compound having a structure similar to that of another one, but differing from it in respect of a certain component. It can differ in one or more atoms, functional groups, or substructures, which are replaced...

s are invisible when dissolved in water, and are odorless. They are somewhat salt
Salt
In chemistry, salts are ionic compounds that result from the neutralization reaction of an acid and a base. They are composed of cations and anions so that the product is electrically neutral...

y in taste, but are indiscernible when dissolved in beverages
Drink
A drink, or beverage, is a liquid which is specifically prepared for human consumption. In addition to fulfilling a basic human need, beverages form part of the culture of human society.-Water:...

 such as soft drink
Soft drink
A soft drink is a non-alcoholic beverage that typically contains water , a sweetener, and a flavoring agent...

s, liquor
Distilled beverage
A distilled beverage, liquor, or spirit is an alcoholic beverage containing ethanol that is produced by distilling ethanol produced by means of fermenting grain, fruit, or vegetables...

, or beer
Beer
Beer is the world's most widely consumed andprobably oldest alcoholic beverage; it is the third most popular drink overall, after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of sugars, mainly derived from malted cereal grains, most commonly malted barley and malted wheat...

."


According to Dr. Ward Dean, "GHB is, in fact, quite salty. When mixed in a drink, it ruins the drink (like dumping bicarb
Sodium bicarbonate
Sodium bicarbonate or sodium hydrogen carbonate is the chemical compound with the formula Na HCO3. Sodium bicarbonate is a white solid that is crystalline but often appears as a fine powder. It has a slightly salty, alkaline taste resembling that of washing soda . The natural mineral form is...

 into a drink)."

Common recreational doses of GHB are in the range of 1.8 to 2.7 grams, a large amount compared with most other sedative drugs, which can be active in amounts measured in milligrams. Doses required to induce complete sedation are even higher in most individuals. This makes detection of a drink tainted with GHB more likely.

The prodrug
Prodrug
A prodrug is a pharmacological substance administered in an inactive form. Once administered, the prodrug is metabolised in vivo into an active metabolite, a process termed bioactivation. The rationale behind the use of a prodrug is generally for absorption, distribution, metabolism, and...

s GBL
Gamma-Butyrolactone
gamma-Butyrolactone is a hygroscopic colorless oily liquid with a weak characteristic odor and is soluble in water. GBL is a common solvent and reagent in chemistry and is used as an aroma compound, as a stain remover, as a superglue remover, as a paint stripper, and as a solvent in some wet...

 and 1,4 Butanediol (1,4 BD or BDO) were used to bypass GHB restriction laws. In the human body the analogs are rapidly converted into GHB. Under US federal law, GBL and other analogs are covered and treated the same as GHB, when used for human consumption. Several people have died after consuming GHB or its analogs, often in combination with alcohol or other sedatives, which amplify its effect.

Dangers

Respiratory depression, coma, and death are unpredictable possibilities when someone unknowingly takes a date rape drug, especially in large doses or in combination with alcohol. There are many factors that can leave someone unpredictably vulnerable. The person may have an unknown allergy to the drug. They may be taking one of several common prescription medicines which have dangerous reactions with date rape drugs. Also, a portion of the population has variations in the enzymes which metabolize the drug, resulting in an unpredictably amplified response to the drug.

It is imperative that any investigation into the suspected use of date rape drugs involve an immediate urine test and possible blood test, as waiting too long to test for the presence of drugs may cause false negatives, because these drugs are quickly metabolized and eliminated by the body. Trying to deduce from the symptoms whether or not date rape drugs have been used can cause false positives.

Testing kits that claim to detect GHB, ketamine
Ketamine
Ketamine is a drug used in human and veterinary medicine. Its hydrochloride salt is sold as Ketanest, Ketaset, and Ketalar. Pharmacologically, ketamine is classified as an NMDA receptor antagonist...

, and benzodiazepine
Benzodiazepine
A benzodiazepine is a psychoactive drug whose core chemical structure is the fusion of a benzene ring and a diazepine ring...

s such as Rohypnol in seconds are commercially available. Companies around the world are making or trying to make paper coasters or test strips that change color when dabbed with a drink doctored with a date rape drug.

Legal issues

In most parts of the world, whether or not a drug was used is irrelevant to the issue of whether a particular incident is rape or not. The legal definition of rape in countries such as the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 also covers a lack of consent when the victim is unable to say "no" to intercourse, whether the effect is due to drugging or simply alcohol consumption.

However in Indiana
Indiana
Indiana is a US state, admitted to the United States as the 19th on December 11, 1816. It is located in the Midwestern United States and Great Lakes Region. With 6,483,802 residents, the state is ranked 15th in population and 16th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38th in land area and is...

it raises the severity of rape from a Class B to Class A felony when the perpetrator drugs the victim or knows that his or her drink was spiked.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK