Bill Would Put Alcohol On Legal Level With Date Rape Drugs In State's Sex Assault Law

[Alfa]

BILL WOULD PUT ALCOHOL ON LEGAL LEVEL WITH DATE RAPE DRUGS IN STATE'S SEX ASSAULT LAW
RACINE - State Sen. Cathy Stepp wants to include alcohol as an intoxicant in the state's sexual assault statue, putting too many drinks on the same legal level as a date rape drug.
Stepp, R-Yorkville, said the issue was brought to her attention by a University of Wisconsin-Parkside student. The current sexual assault statute lists several intoxicants, all of which are controlled substances or controlled substances combined with alcohol.
Alcohol is listed as an intoxicant in four other places in the
statutes: when people are operating vehicles, ATVs, snowmobiles and boats.
Wisconsin is the only state in the country that does not classify alcohol as an intoxicant in its sexual assault statutes.
Scott Nelson, legislative counsel in Stepp's office, said under the existing law, alcohol falls into a gap when it comes to sexual assault.
"There's no logical reason to have this gap in the law," Nelson said.
"There's no difference between smoking marijuana and getting high and drinking alcohol and getting drunk."
Alcohol was removed from the statute in the mid-1990s, when the statute was rewritten to include date rape drugs like rohypnol.
"We have advice for women, like keep your drink with you at parties and don't let anyone fill your cup up for you," Stepp said. "Alcohol is not listed in there. This is one of those situations where you say 'What? Are you kidding? That can't be so,' and it is so. We're looking to change that because clearly alcohol is an intoxicant."
The statute creates stiffer penalties for people convicted of having sex or sexual contact with a person who has had enough drinks to compromise their ability to accurately assess the situation. The statute also requires the perpetrator be aware that the victim is incapacitated.
A person convicted under this statute could be fined up to $100,000 or sentenced to up to 40 years in prison.
The wording of the bill covers situations where the victim finds themselves intoxicated beyond the ability to judge a situation clearly and those where the perpetrator has purposely given the victim alcohol or other drugs to incapacitate them.
Stepp said this change is necessary because people often do not consider alcohol a drug.
"People have to take (alcohol) seriously as an intoxicant," she said.
Too often they say 'So what, you have too much to drink.' It is a big deal. If someone's trying to ply you with alcohol to take advantage of you, there's no difference between that and slipping something into someone's drink, in my mind."
Karen Carnabucci is a clinical social worker working as a psychotherapist in Racine. She has extensive experience working with trauma, sexual assault and domestic violence. She said alcohol and other substances often play a part in sexual assaults.
"Alcohol distorts people's abilities to think clearly," Carnabucci said. "It certainly distorts individuals' judgments, both on the part of the would-be perpetrator and the victim. It's not uncommon for individuals who are intoxicated to put themselves in risky situations where they may lose their best judgment about what may be safe."
She said sexual assault victims already have a great deal of shame associated with the crime committed against them, and that when alcohol and other drugs are involved it becomes even more difficult.
"It is typical after a sexual assault to feel a great deal of shame, just with an assault itself," Carnabucci said. "When an intoxicant may be involved there may be an additional layer of shame as well. Often from the point of view of a survivor there may be a lot of self-blame."
Legislators have proposed similar changes to the statute before, but they have never passed. The Senate Judicial Committee held a hearing earlier this month on the most recent bill; no one spoke against it.
The committee is expected to vote on the bill today. Once out of committee, the bill will come before the Senate for a vote and, if passed, will then move to the Assembly. If it passes both the Senate and Assembly, it would then go to Gov. Jim Doyle before becoming law.

Source: Journal Times, The (Racine, WI)

[AdderallJunkie102]

NO WAY!? Politicians are actually saying that getting drunk is that same as getting high? I thought I would never live to see that.

[radiometer]

"There's no logical reason to have this gap in the law," Nelson said.

Well-said! And as much as I may advocate for drug legalization, I would also advocate the prosecution of the use of any drug whatsoever to harm another individual. It should be a crime to intoxicate another individual without their knowledge and consent period, if it's not already.

[Aaron]

This one is iffy for me. While I hate to see things limited any more than they already are, it is simply not acceptable to use any drug, legal or not, against someone. The problem I see coming from this is people getting drunk on their own, and using it as an excuse to file a rape case to justify their own lack of judgement. It all comes back to intent in the end. Did the person intend to use alcohol to rape someone? Was the alleged victim aware that they were consuming alcohol?

All important things to consider. Used properly and with enough caution, I don't see this law as being a bad thing.

[Mutil]

using drugs to take advantage of someone is disgusting, but problems could arise from this. if a woman knows she's consuming alcohol, and winds up having too much to drink, i really don't think it's anyone's fault but hers. it's pretty hard not to notice if someone's slipping alcohol into your drink, so it's really just up to women to be careful.

[Pondlife]

This thread could easily wander off topic into a debate about informed consent. Please avoid the temptation to lead the thread in that direction. Thanks.

[Panthers007]

This thread was dormant for over 2 years. Check the dates.

[stoneinfocus]

Considering the penalities there're for "date-rape" drugs, taking alcohol into the same categorie would be fair.

IMHO alcohol is -in this context- date-rape drug No.1.

But I'm against any date-rape drug lay whatsoever, I think the category date-rape drug isn't necessary, because it's not the drug, it's the guys/scumbags who use anything against anyone to get their satisfaction.

Anyone, who's unconcious and obviously not capable of making decisions on his own anymore-in the sense of the law's definition- is under the protection of numerous laws, already.

[bcubed]

For what it's worth, this bill is now law.

A quick perusal of the 'net comes up with this paraphrasing of MI's "Criminal Sexual Conduct" law:

Three reasons a person cannot give consent

1. An individual cannot consent to a sexual experience if they are "mentally incapacitated" by drugs or alcohol. This means that a person is temporarily incapable of appraising or controlling his/her conduct due to the influence of drugs or alcohol.
2. [Statutory Rape; not applicable to this discussion]
3. An individual who is legally developmentally disables, mentally retarded, mentally ill, mentally incapable, or physically helpless is not capable of consenting to a sexual experience according to the CSC law for Michigan

A couple things that come to mind:

1. From other sources I've read (I'll try to provide evidence =< 24 hrs), the law applies to one person attempting to "seduce" another, and the first person is not eligible to use "I was drunk myself" as a defense. Now, in sexual pick-ups, 99+% of the time, the male propositions the female. We could discuss on end WHY this is so; for now, let's just agree that this is the reality. Given that, this is a "facially neutral" law that applies to males disproportionally often. How is this not a clear-cut violation of "equal protection under the law"?

2. How is drunkenness at time of sex determined? By non-medically trained people at the bar? By plaintiff's opinion? By a BAC test the next morning that's incapable of determining WHEN the alcohol was consumed?

3. I included item #3, as intoxication is a mental incapacity of sorts, albeit a willed one. I carry a mental diagnosis. How kind of you, Michigan, to decide for me that I ought not be having sex! Furthermore, ought I own land? For census purposes, ought I be counted as 1 person, or only 60% worth?

[stoneinfocus]

Nice one, leave the drug BS-§§ behind, the law-obeying citizen will inform himself and read all of it and won't have sex with druggies, shizos and drunken women. Cool.

Hm, so a new way of eugenics/castration of those, declared mentally ill, same time throwing drug-users into the category of mentally disabled/incapacitated people, women, according to the law, moreoften, than men, so women must be clean(sober to have sex, without compromising the men. but men may be drunken/high, -so it was best to marry and celebrate the man gets drunk and screws his wife scenario.

Or am I spinning this thought too far?

I mean, this is law-making, this is so detailed, so abstract, that this law will never ever make any changes or make things in court easier to find the truth.

Women -and men(!), are still going to be raped -more often in their marriage, than when going out.

Women still won't be believed, when they have been raped, nor will the report it more often, after it had happened and women will sue and ruin men's lives on basis of these laws, 'cause they just had to drink a bit too much or snort a line or smoke a joint, get laid and if it then comes to their minds, that it wasn't that cool, or were just plain evil-minded, they can bring these men's existence into great trouble or might it be just because they wanted to save their "I'm sober" image. This is ridiculous. That is imho the well thought through outcome and effect in the peoples' minds and is not about law-making at all, but about psychological warfare.

[Beeker]

If they pass this any girl who didn't get that call the next day could put someone in jail. I don't see it passing ... to many ways to abuse such a classification.

[stoneinfocus]

marriage or nothing. fear it all. ;-)