Opinions - Alcohol Is Most Common 'Date Rape' Drug

[Euphoric]

Alcohol Is Most Common 'Date Rape' Drug

ScienceDaily (Oct. 22, 2007) — Young women in Northern Ireland are leaving themselves vulnerable to rape or serious sexual assault because of their binge drinking, according to research carried out by staff and students within the Forensic and Legal Medicine team at the University of Ulster.


Dr Janet Hall undertook a Masters research project with supervisors Dr Tara Moore and Professor Edward Goodall on drug facilitated sexual assault within Northern Ireland. They examined toxicology results compiled from victims of alleged sexual assaults over a six year period from 1999 to 2005. The findings demonstrated that the average alcohol levels at the time of the alleged assaults were almost three times the drink/driving limit.


The research undermines claims that the use of ‘date-rape’ drugs or ‘spiking’ of drinks is the major factor involved. The study failed to find any trace of specific date rape drugs such as GHB, Rohypnol or ketamine, although it did caution that delays in reporting alleged assaults or in taking samples could mean that such drugs could no longer be detected.


The study found that the number of cases where toxicology samples were taken rose from 30 in 1999 to 51 in 2005 and the percentage of samples which contained alcohol, drugs or both increased from 66% to 78% over the same period.


The number of cases where high or very high levels of alcohol were found in the alleged victims increased over the same period. Although the involvement of drugs, other than alcohol, in the samples doubled in the six year period, their contribution to the assaults remain unclear. Many of the drugs detected were either prescription drugs or recreational drugs. Some drugs which could have been used to spike drinks were detected, but they also may have been simply prescribed for use by the alleged victim.


Dr Janet Hall, who examined the Forensic Science Northern Ireland toxicology database, said: "This research confirms the findings of other studies in the UK, US and Australia – that alcohol is a major contributor to vulnerability to sexual assault in social situations and acquaintance rape."


Dr Hall added "Given the very high levels of alcohol consumption by some alleged victims, the findings also raise the question of what constitutes valid consent to sexual activity. The capacity to give informed consent at these levels of alcohol consumption is very questionable."


Dr Moore said "Further study is now required to give a more accurate picture of the involvement of alcohol and drugs in cases of alleged sexual assault."


This research once again has highlighted the need for a clear message to be given to all regarding the importance of responsible drinking.


Avoidance of mixing different alcoholic drinks in one sitting and avoidance of mixing alcohol with other substances such as prescription medications or recreational drugs, will help reduce the vulnerability, in social settings, to sexual assault or even rape, the authors say.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...1020113144.htm

Reputation Comments on this post:

good post

[Zaprenz]

It has to be methylcarbinol these days.

Close to 100% of drinks tested in any pub/club will more often than not contains traces of methylcarbinol.

It's a worrying trend but here are a few facts for the those worried about methylcarbimol...

# Most people when asked have no idea what methylcarbinol is
# Dealers have found a clever way of working with people in government so their product can still be dealt/abused (as long as the government gets it's cut)
# It's responsible for more accident and emergency visits than most other recreational drugs
# One of it's breakdown products is a toxic aldehyde which cause numerous health problems.

Reputation Comments on this post:

Clever.

[Euphoric]

Care to enlighten us about methylcarbimol? Wikipedia failed to.

[Zaprenz]

...let's just say if it was a new drug it would probably be banned.

alternatively try pubchem...

http://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/

[it's more reliable than wikipedia]

[Euphoric]

That site seems good but I had a bit of trouble navigating though I did find a listing for methylcarbinol. Sadly there was mostly chem structure info on that page and the links to bio effects, toxicology, etc, were not working. There's nothing here in the forums about it either. It would be awesome if someone were to start a thread about it in the appropriate forum, please and thanks.

[Zaprenz]

http://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/summ...ry.cgi?cid=702

[Zaprenz]

On a similar topic be on the look out for dihydrogen monoxide. It's polluting our rivers...

http://www.drugs-forum.com/forum/sho...rogen+monoxide

[Petethemeat]

I understood exactly what you were on about.

Dihydrogen monoxide is just abhorent though. Did you know it can kill you in three days due to withdrawl!

[Euphoric]

Lol, now I feel like an ass. For further enlightenment see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dihydrogen_monoxide_hoax

Thanks for humbling me. Interesting stuff.

[Zaprenz]

Would be amusing to start a public health scare about methylcarbinol.

Given the accurate description of alcohol but named as methylcarbinol - SWIM would bet a lot of people would try to outlaw it.

An interesting social experiment, bit like the dihydrogen monoxide.

[MrG]

Trouble is, nobody wants to call Alcohol a date rape drug because there is too much money being made out of it and it would take too much effort to restrict it.

Now, sitting on your ass at a press conference and declaring GHB to be an evil date rape drug whilst having no knowledge as to what it actually is bar some media induced hysteria about supposed drugging incidents, that is a whole lot easier and will get much positive press for your campaign coverage.

[Zaprenz]

Definately agree.

Thing with GHB is though, you can't get away from the fact that it still has a very harsh dose response curve.

Possibly a partial GHB/Gaba(b) agonist is the way forwards for the next big socially accepted drug.