6 ms·

Regarding #3, what data are you going off to say that Rohypnol has not been detected, and that drugging overall is uncommon? I have experienced it twice in the

Regarding #3, what data are you going off to say that Rohypnol has not been detected, and that drugging overall is uncommon? I have experienced it twice in the past 18 months through friends whom I have drank with many times, and had a very obvious reaction to one drink which often had been bought for them or left on a table/bar at some point that evening. Unless someone poured them a drink comprised of 6+ shots worth of liquor, there is no way they would have gone through the change they went through in that one drink. Also, if it had been that much alcohol, it would have been noticed in taste. Uncommon is pretty broad, if something as severe as being drugged happens to one person out of every 200 each night, it is "common" in my mind.

Nursie 13y ago
>> Regarding #3, what data are you going off to say that Rohypnol has not been detected, and that drugging overall is uncommon? Wikipedia has links to a couple of studies. It says Rohypnol was detected in less than 1% of cases of sexual assault where drugging was suspected. I obviously have no idea what you and your friends have seen or been through or what they may have been spiked with. I'm just saying that whenever actual figures are looked at the problem of drinks being spiked with drugs turns out to be far, far behind witting or unwitting consumption of alcohol as the reason for people being in a bad way. This is in NO WAY whatsoever saying it's acceptable to abuse someone who's drunk, or that it's their fault. People should be free to get as trashed as they like without bad people doing bad things to them. It may very well be that this stuff doesn't get tested or reported very often, in which case the most we can say is we don't have reliable data.
- kevingadd 13y ago
  The OP itself describes how the numbers are going to be heavily skewed because of how the drugs get metabolized and how often people don't report...
  - sliverstorm 13y ago
    You can't use the fact that the numbers will be skewed as evidence that drugging must be common.
  - Nursie 13y ago
    Right, but it seems to be that even when drugs are suspected and tested for within a pretty rapid time period, most often alcohol is the culprit - http://www.octevaw-cocvff.ca/sites/all/files/pdf/reports/Drug-FacilitatedSA.pdf http://www.octevaw-cocvff.ca/sites/all/files/pdf/reports/Dru... Rohypnol in particular should be easy to pick up, Flunitrazepam has a halflife of 18+ hours and at least one metabolite has a halflife of 36-200 hours. In fact according to this - http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/201894.pdf http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/201894.pdf - it can be detected in urine for 5 days and hair for a month. If people are unlikely to report, or if drugs that are metabolised faster are used then sure, we may not have good data. But then all we can really say is we don't have good data.
- justin66 13y ago
  > It says Rohypnol was detected in less than 1% of cases of sexual assault where drugging was suspected. That might not mean what you think it means. From http://www.drugs.com/rohypnol.html http://www.drugs.com/rohypnol.html : > It is difficult to estimate the number of Rohypnol-facilitated rapes in the United States. Very often, biological samples are taken from the victim at a time when the effects of the drug have already passed and only residual amounts remain in the body fluids. These residual amounts are difficult, if not impossible, to detect using standard screening assays available in the United States. If Rohypnol exposure is to be detected at all, urine samples need to be collected within 72 hours and subjected to sensitive analytical tests. Now, the bit about "sensitive analytical tests" has me pretty worried. We are living in a nation where an awful lot of rape kits collected after the crime of rape are simply put on a shelf because there is no money to process them. I bet that "sensitive analytical tests" aren't even on the menu a lot of times.
  - Nursie 13y ago
    Again, at the most that says we don't have good data, however according to wikipedia (and it does seem to be well referenced https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_rape_drug https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_rape_drug and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_rape#Drugs_used_in_sexual_assault http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_rape#Drugs_used_in_sexual_...) even studies that are designed to catch this stuff don't seem to get much over 1-2% for rohypnol where alcohol comes in closer to half of cases of suspected drug assisted assault. I really want to stress that I don't think that in any way diminishes the awfulness of the crime, I just wonder if (like stranger danger) we don't overemphasise the worst-case at the cost of the mundane (people known to the victim, alcohol)
    - justin66 13y ago
      I'm kind of shocked at how bad that infographic on wikipedia is. I don't disagree on any particular point you've made.
      - Nursie 13y ago
        Yeah that is pretty damn awful, if only due to heavy compression and artifacting. I've come to expect more from my free encyclopedia :)
asdasf 13y ago
That's exactly it though, lots of people "experience" being roofied, and then are tested and it turns out they were not. Our "common sense" judgments on situations like this are actually incredibly unreliable. >Uncommon is pretty broad, if something as severe as being drugged happens to one person out of every 200 each night, it is "common" in my mind. But evidence suggests it is no where even close to that common. Alcohol on the other hand might very well be used more often than 1 in 200.
- jamieb 13y ago
  >That's exactly it though, lots of people "experience" being roofied, and then are tested and it turns out they were not. Do you have a link for that?
  - silverlake 13y ago
    Toxicological findings in cases of alleged drug-facilitated sexual assault in the United Kingdom over a 3-year period: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16054005 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16054005 TL;DR: 1014 people claimed they were drugged and sexually assaulted. "In 21 cases (2%), a sedative or disinhibiting drug was detected..." So-called "date rape" drugs were a subset of these cases.
    - jamieb 13y ago
      From your source: "Illicit drugs were detected in 344 cases (34%)"
      - Nursie 13y ago
        Illicit does not mean unwitting or unwillingly taken. (Again, no judgement on those that choose to use drugs, I certainly do and I think that drug users are as deserving of protection as anyone else)
justin66 13y ago
> I have experienced it twice in the past 18 months through friends whom I have drank with many times, and had a very obvious reaction to one drink which often had been bought for them or left on a table/bar at some point that evening. Unless someone poured them a drink comprised of 6+ shots worth of liquor, there is no way they would have gone through the change they went through in that one drink. Can you elaborate at all? I'm curious because, as disgusting as it is, I can sort of understand the motivation of the standard date rape scenario with Rohypnol. What you're describing sounds more like the equivalent of someone spiking the punch... with Rohypnol? To what end? Horrifying.
sixothree 13y ago
I've had it happen to me as well. I was very young at the time and only had two drinks the entire night. Luckily I was with safe friends, so it could have been worse. Shockingly once at a party I was offered to buy rohypnol. I was lurid. I certainly don't look like the type of person who would buy drugs, much less from a random stranger...
- ColinWright 13y ago
  > I was lurid. > ......^^^^^. I do not think that word means what you think it means. https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=lurid https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=lurid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2y8Sx4B2Sk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2y8Sx4B2Sk
  - sixothree 13y ago
    Oh my. I felt my fingers twitch when I typed that sentence. But alas I only have 30 minutes for lunch as did not budget time for lookup. Still though, lurid may be an appropriate adjective.
- foobarbazqux 13y ago
  What does the type of person who would buy drugs look like?
  - omarchowdhury 13y ago
    Like this guy, obviously: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-D4-VcT-tdyU/T6nfkqfzPNI/AAAAAAAABp8/1rhDqieTh94/s400/Tyrone2.jpg http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-D4-VcT-tdyU/T6nfkqfzPNI/AAAAAAAABp...
  - sixothree 13y ago
    I can tell you what the type of person who does not buy drugs looks like.
- rasur 13y ago
  *livid
drewblaisdell 13y ago
There are so many factors that can lead to a temporary increased sensitivity to alcohol that I am skeptical of anecdotal evidence like this, especially when alcohol is involved. Rohypnol/GHB are certainly used as date rape drugs, but they have an effect that is distinct from just more liquor.

Nursie 13y ago

>> Regarding #3, what data are you going off to say that Rohypnol has not been detected, and that drugging overall is uncommon? Wikipedia has links to a couple of studies. It says Rohypnol was detected in less than 1% of cases of sexual assault where drugging was suspected. I obviously have no idea what you and your friends have seen or been through or what they may have been spiked with. I'm just saying that whenever actual figures are looked at the problem of drinks being spiked with drugs turns out to be far, far behind witting or unwitting consumption of alcohol as the reason for people being in a bad way. This is in NO WAY whatsoever saying it's acceptable to abuse someone who's drunk, or that it's their fault. People should be free to get as trashed as they like without bad people doing bad things to them. It may very well be that this stuff doesn't get tested or reported very often, in which case the most we can say is we don't have reliable data.

kevingadd 13y ago
The OP itself describes how the numbers are going to be heavily skewed because of how the drugs get metabolized and how often people don't report...
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  You can't use the fact that the numbers will be skewed as evidence that drugging must be common.
- Nursie 13y ago
  Right, but it seems to be that even when drugs are suspected and tested for within a pretty rapid time period, most often alcohol is the culprit - http://www.octevaw-cocvff.ca/sites/all/files/pdf/reports/Drug-FacilitatedSA.pdf http://www.octevaw-cocvff.ca/sites/all/files/pdf/reports/Dru... Rohypnol in particular should be easy to pick up, Flunitrazepam has a halflife of 18+ hours and at least one metabolite has a halflife of 36-200 hours. In fact according to this - http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/201894.pdf http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/201894.pdf - it can be detected in urine for 5 days and hair for a month. If people are unlikely to report, or if drugs that are metabolised faster are used then sure, we may not have good data. But then all we can really say is we don't have good data.
justin66 13y ago
> It says Rohypnol was detected in less than 1% of cases of sexual assault where drugging was suspected. That might not mean what you think it means. From http://www.drugs.com/rohypnol.html http://www.drugs.com/rohypnol.html : > It is difficult to estimate the number of Rohypnol-facilitated rapes in the United States. Very often, biological samples are taken from the victim at a time when the effects of the drug have already passed and only residual amounts remain in the body fluids. These residual amounts are difficult, if not impossible, to detect using standard screening assays available in the United States. If Rohypnol exposure is to be detected at all, urine samples need to be collected within 72 hours and subjected to sensitive analytical tests. Now, the bit about "sensitive analytical tests" has me pretty worried. We are living in a nation where an awful lot of rape kits collected after the crime of rape are simply put on a shelf because there is no money to process them. I bet that "sensitive analytical tests" aren't even on the menu a lot of times.
- Nursie 13y ago
  Again, at the most that says we don't have good data, however according to wikipedia (and it does seem to be well referenced https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_rape_drug https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_rape_drug and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_rape#Drugs_used_in_sexual_assault http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_rape#Drugs_used_in_sexual_...) even studies that are designed to catch this stuff don't seem to get much over 1-2% for rohypnol where alcohol comes in closer to half of cases of suspected drug assisted assault. I really want to stress that I don't think that in any way diminishes the awfulness of the crime, I just wonder if (like stranger danger) we don't overemphasise the worst-case at the cost of the mundane (people known to the victim, alcohol)
  - justin66 13y ago
    I'm kind of shocked at how bad that infographic on wikipedia is. I don't disagree on any particular point you've made.
    - Nursie 13y ago
      Yeah that is pretty damn awful, if only due to heavy compression and artifacting. I've come to expect more from my free encyclopedia :)

asdasf 13y ago

That's exactly it though, lots of people "experience" being roofied, and then are tested and it turns out they were not. Our "common sense" judgments on situations like this are actually incredibly unreliable. >Uncommon is pretty broad, if something as severe as being drugged happens to one person out of every 200 each night, it is "common" in my mind. But evidence suggests it is no where even close to that common. Alcohol on the other hand might very well be used more often than 1 in 200.

jamieb 13y ago
>That's exactly it though, lots of people "experience" being roofied, and then are tested and it turns out they were not. Do you have a link for that?
- silverlake 13y ago
  Toxicological findings in cases of alleged drug-facilitated sexual assault in the United Kingdom over a 3-year period: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16054005 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16054005 TL;DR: 1014 people claimed they were drugged and sexually assaulted. "In 21 cases (2%), a sedative or disinhibiting drug was detected..." So-called "date rape" drugs were a subset of these cases.
  - jamieb 13y ago
    From your source: "Illicit drugs were detected in 344 cases (34%)"
    - Nursie 13y ago
      Illicit does not mean unwitting or unwillingly taken. (Again, no judgement on those that choose to use drugs, I certainly do and I think that drug users are as deserving of protection as anyone else)

justin66 13y ago

> I have experienced it twice in the past 18 months through friends whom I have drank with many times, and had a very obvious reaction to one drink which often had been bought for them or left on a table/bar at some point that evening. Unless someone poured them a drink comprised of 6+ shots worth of liquor, there is no way they would have gone through the change they went through in that one drink. Can you elaborate at all? I'm curious because, as disgusting as it is, I can sort of understand the motivation of the standard date rape scenario with Rohypnol. What you're describing sounds more like the equivalent of someone spiking the punch... with Rohypnol? To what end? Horrifying.

sixothree 13y ago

I've had it happen to me as well. I was very young at the time and only had two drinks the entire night. Luckily I was with safe friends, so it could have been worse. Shockingly once at a party I was offered to buy rohypnol. I was lurid. I certainly don't look like the type of person who would buy drugs, much less from a random stranger...

ColinWright 13y ago
> I was lurid. > ......^^^^^. I do not think that word means what you think it means. https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=lurid https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=lurid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2y8Sx4B2Sk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2y8Sx4B2Sk
- sixothree 13y ago
  Oh my. I felt my fingers twitch when I typed that sentence. But alas I only have 30 minutes for lunch as did not budget time for lookup. Still though, lurid may be an appropriate adjective.
foobarbazqux 13y ago
What does the type of person who would buy drugs look like?
- omarchowdhury 13y ago
  Like this guy, obviously: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-D4-VcT-tdyU/T6nfkqfzPNI/AAAAAAAABp8/1rhDqieTh94/s400/Tyrone2.jpg http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-D4-VcT-tdyU/T6nfkqfzPNI/AAAAAAAABp...
- sixothree 13y ago
  I can tell you what the type of person who does not buy drugs looks like.
rasur 13y ago
*livid

drewblaisdell 13y ago

There are so many factors that can lead to a temporary increased sensitivity to alcohol that I am skeptical of anecdotal evidence like this, especially when alcohol is involved. Rohypnol/GHB are certainly used as date rape drugs, but they have an effect that is distinct from just more liquor.