I wanted to bring up the Issue of Drink Spiking. Here in Australia it is a big problem, although the media don't really like to talk about it. I don't know the actual statistics, but listening friends and peoples stories it seems to happen alot. It has happened to four friends of mine and one was a guy, his drink had been spiked on two seperate occasions the second time left him hospitalised for 3 days.
I really believe that more should be done to stop drink spiking and really start to prosecute the perpetrators of this horrible act. Its bad enough that when we go out night clubbing we have to put up with rude/sexist comments, inappropriate touching and grabbing. But on top of that we have to watch our drinks like hawks, so we don't end up being sexually assaulted or seriously injured while being drugged and unconscious.
Friends that have shared their experiences with me, have total memory loss of the events that took place having never remembered what actually happened. And unfortunatly alot of the time these women just end up as statistics with the police not wanting to know about their ordeals.
I understand that the process of stopping drink spiking can be quite difficult as it hard to catch people as it is such a sneeky act, but im certain there must ways that this crime can be combated. Things like education and public awareness with government funding and community support should be more prevalent, and there should be more care and support for the victims of sexual assault.
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I often wonder if they can do some sort of statistical analysis. If they have people able to come in and tell them about drink spiking wihtout hassle (and preferably with them offering some counselling if people want it) they might see patterns in where it happens, so know what bars to keep an eye on.
The other thing that i think could be done is for police to go educate bar staff on how to spot spiking and what to do if they do see something suspicious, and hold them acountable if need be if they know of something happening in their bar and do nothing.
Other than that educating bystanders on how to help people wouldn't hurt.
I did some research at my state university regarding the sexual assaults reported to the city police for a two year time frame.
I have since moved on and the report has not been published yet so I don't have the hard data to report, but I can tell you from my observation is that reports of spiked drinks were extremely rare. We are talking about a fraction of a percent of reported assaults to the police.
On numerous occasions a woman would thought that she had been drugged, but when the toxicology came back there was no indication of any of the prevalent date-rape drugs. The conclusion was the vic was just incredibility intoxicated.
It could be that stories of spiked drinks are more prevalent than the occurrence. It could be that people that have their drinks spiked report their assaults at a decreased rate compared to other rape victims. For those that thought they had their drinks spiked but the toxicology came back clean that there was some new, or little known drug.
On a final note... most sexual offenders don't really need to spike a drink... they just need to get their victims to consume more alcohol, or wait while they consume more alcohol by themselves. When it comes to sexual assault, alcohol is bad enough itself.