AIBU or are teenage girls too afraid to go out at night? Afraid because of drink spiking and being injected.

[Metropolismoon]

Dd is in her first year at Reading Uni. 7 girls have recently been injected at the students union and she has a friend at another uni who had her drink spiked.

She is now afraid to go out at night and she and her friends have kitchen parties instead.

I think it’s really sad that they are having to stay home as it’s considered too unsafe to go out at night.

@Suzi888

This is terrible. What’s the answer? Passports/I.D and searches before entry? More security… The world is getting a horrible place to live lately.

I did see a UK Parliament petition to pass a law requiring metal detectors, searches when entering a club. It got over 100,000 signatures and is supposed to be debated....see if I can find it and post a link.

Here is the petition:
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/598986

Make it a legal requirement for nightclubs to thoroughly search guests on entry

I would like the UK Government to make it law that nightclubs must search guests on arrival to prevent harmful weapons and other items entering the establishment. This could be a pat down search or metal detector, but must involve measures being put in place to ensure the safety of the public.

169,051 signatures so far, you could sign?

Parliament considers all petitions that get more than 100,000 signatures for a debate. Status is listed as “Waiting for 8 days for a debate date”

I did see a UK Parliament petition to pass a law requiring metal detectors, searches when entering a club. It got over 100,000 signatures and is supposed to be debated....see if I can find it and post a link

The problem is this will do fuck all for drunk spikers as they wouldn't show up on a metal detector. We need to start imposing really harsh (and well deserved) punishments for rape and spiking. We need better/clear cctv in clubs and we need to get bouncers etc to start asking questions about people's welfare when they are being carried out of clubs in awful states. We should have ID scanned for every person entering so they can easily be identified.

While I appreciate that many are saying not possible, my local police force has confirmed at least one case of this this weekend, and another suspected

@Bumblenums1234

I did see a UK Parliament petition to pass a law requiring metal detectors, searches when entering a club. It got over 100,000 signatures and is supposed to be debated....see if I can find it and post a link

The problem is this will do fuck all for drunk spikers as they wouldn't show up on a metal detector. We need to start imposing really harsh (and well deserved) punishments for rape and spiking. We need better/clear cctv in clubs and we need to get bouncers etc to start asking questions about people's welfare when they are being carried out of clubs in awful states. We should have ID scanned for every person entering so they can easily be identified.

These are good ideas. Don’t see why both the petitions ideas plus yours could not be done? Perhaps start another petition calling for those additional measures?

@KnobJockey

While I appreciate that many are saying not possible, my local police force has confirmed at least one case of this this weekend, and another suspected

Thank you. I would be extremely interested in the details and the toxicology report for this confirmed incident (I appreciate you won't have it and it may not even be published!).

People injecting others really isn't a big issue. It's nigh on impossible for someone to do this reliably without the other person being aware something untoward is happening, unless they are so drunk they are almost passed out anyway. Just because there is suddenly more awareness that this theoretically exists doesn't make it more likely to happen and certainly doesn't change the physical realities of trying to attempt it.

"Classic" spiking, either giving some a stronger drink or slipping them a Mickey, is of course real and probably everyone knows someone who has had this happen to them. I'm not sure the evidence suggests this is more common nowadays, the "golden age" of drink spiking was the late 90s when there was less awareness of how to protect yourself.

The important thing to remember is that on any given night an individual is overwhelmingly unlikely to fall victim to either. The problem we have at the moment is that we tend to be influenced by media coverage and assume the more coverage an issue has, the more likely it is to happen. Unfortunately women tend to be more guilty of this than men. The evidence shows that men are four times more likely to be attacked than women, yet men are less afraid than women of going out by themselves at night. We need to address this perception. We can't overnight stop male violence, but we could overnight change our own attitude to risk by better educating ourselves of the reality.

@HarrietsChariot
I agree and that is why I continued to go out when a uni student in the 90s and my teen DDs are also continuing to go out. You can’t live in fear. Yes, fight for change not saying we should accept these awful risks. But me and my DDs I would say are too stubborn and defiant to let this stop us.

My dd is at uni and has been using a nail varnish that changes colour with ghb apparently you just put a drop of your drink on your nails if it's spiked they change colour it's saved a couple of her friends. They order it from an American site that also does straws aswell

How is this happening?
I have seen reports on the news and I believe two people in Nottingham have been arrested for it?
But as a former nurse it wouldn't be easy to inject a random person who might be passing by ,I wouldn't have thought .

@Lockheart I have no details other than it happened in Hull, under Humberside police, and a local bar has been pinpointed as a potential site to be wary of. Interestingly, 2 people had mentioned this bar to me previously as a place to tell my teen to avoid as they suspected friends had been spiked there (over the summer)

@x2boys

How is this happening? I have seen reports on the news and I believe two people in Nottingham have been arrested for it? But as a former nurse it wouldn't be easy to inject a random person who might be passing by ,I wouldn't have thought .

The arrests in Nottingham that I'm aware of were for possession of class A and B with the intent to spike (or in official terms, "to poison, aggravate or annoy", I think it is).

The BBC article published a few days ago specifically said these offences did not involve a needle.

So from the sounds of it they were bog standard spiking arrests.

Sadly most people who believe they were spiked don’t go to hospitals and people have a tendency to underestimate how differently alcohol can hit you depending on a whole bunch of factors.
I’m involved in drug testing as part of my role and after the 1st lockdown we predicted there would be a rise in people believing they were drugged once clubs opened up properly. While there are definitely real drink spiking going on there are also a number of people who mistakenly feel they have been spiked that are adding to this real climate of fear.

@KnobJockey

While I appreciate that many are saying not possible, my local police force has confirmed at least one case of this this weekend, and another suspected

The wording of that isn't clear.

Reading a fuller report in the local newspaper it reads differently

www.hulldailymail.co.uk/news/hull-east-yorkshire-news/woman-spiked-injection-hulls-silvers-6111974

What they appear to be saying is that two incidents were reported, one had been confirmed but it doesn't say which of the two that is. Maybe the police spokesperson is being deliberately unclear as it's under investigation, I don't think you can say for sure which one they have confirmed

[quote KnobJockey]@Lockheart I have no details other than it happened in Hull, under Humberside police, and a local bar has been pinpointed as a potential site to be wary of. Interestingly, 2 people had mentioned this bar to me previously as a place to tell my teen to avoid as they suspected friends had been spiked there (over the summer)[/quote]
No of course, I would just be very interested to see it and to understand the details.

GHB (which disappears from the body quite fast) does not lend itself well to being injected. The other drugs which would work well with an intravenous injection, and less well with an intramuscular injection, would be things like benzodiazepines which are traceable in the body for a longer period.

So far the only toxicology reports which I am aware of following allegations of injection spiking are from Exeter and were clear.

I honestly think the initial media article about spiking happening through injection has given men ideas. Honestly.

Literally never heard of it before. Suddenly it seems to be happening to girls everywhere and 18yo niece knows a few personally, or friends of friends.

@JCFJW

I honestly think the initial media article about spiking happening through injection has given men ideas. Honestly.

Literally never heard of it before. Suddenly it seems to be happening to girls everywhere and 18yo niece knows a few personally, or friends of friends.

When reports started emerging I spent some time scrolling through Twitter searching for it.

It exploded around the 12/13 October.

Before that, I could find no mention.

Another indication to me that this is in the main a social media phenomenon rather than an actual nationwide epidemic.

@Metropolismoon

Yes, such a shame after all the staying home through A levels, no leaving ball. I thought she’d finally be going out into the world, having the full uni experience, not home in the kitchen with her flat mates because it’s the only place they feel safe.

The reason behind that is awful of course but the scenario you’ve described doesn’t sound bad to me tbh. I loved the parties we had in each other’s kitchens or when we were single. Same goes gif the parties at our halls while at uni

I have given IM injection,s when I was a nurse ,it's not something that could really go unnoticed particularly as I assume they would be injecting through clothes ,you would need your intended target to be still whilst you did it ,,it would be easier I guess at a private party.

Apparently there’s more spiking at house parties than clubs due to lack of security.

@MakeMineALarge1 It's naive to think that no rapist would try to find a victim in a nightclub because being in a public place will protect you and a one to one scenario would be easier for them.

A man seriously sexually assaulted me in a nightclub when I was younger and very drunk. He was also attempting to abduct me and had already told me that he was going to rape me (although he used different language) as he was moving me towards the exit . The place was rammed, very dark and very noisy so nobody noticed that I was trying to fight him off or heard me shouting/screaming. He was obviously stronger than me so holding me very close and to an outsider could easily have looked like my boyfriend helping me in my drunken state. I eventually managed to wrangle myself away (and it absolutely felt like I was fighting for my life) and get to the only nearby place I could think that he couldn't follow me and people could hear me - the ladies toilets. Another young woman in there saw me panicking and crying, locked herself in a cubicle with me, waited until some time had passed and made sure he wasn't waiting outside, then delivered me back to my friends so he couldn't try to grab me again.

I woke the next morning with a sore vagina, bruises on my throat and arms and a mark on my forehead where he'd kind of headbutted me, all in view of other people and without even needing to spike my drink. A dark, busy, noisy place filled with flashing lights and drunk people is an ideal place to find a victim.

@Hoardasurass

My dd is at uni and has been using a nail varnish that changes colour with ghb apparently you just put a drop of your drink on your nails if it's spiked they change colour it's saved a couple of her friends. They order it from an American site that also does straws aswell

This was something that did the Facebook rounds a few years ago. As far as I'm aware, no such product actually exists I'm afraid.

My DS was spiked, there's no way he would have taken anything himself, aside from being very anti drug, he's a nurse and was waiting for a medical with the Army (which involves drug tests).
He was in a nightclub with friends, says he only had a couple of rum and cokes and suddenly collapsed. He has form for drinking too much, he freely admits that, but drugs were never on his radar.
2 years down the line, he hasn't even touched alcohol once since and has never been out clubbing again. He remains angry. Its a terrifying experience.

It’s not just teens, a colleague (mid 40’s)was needle spiked last weekend, doesn’t drink, 1hr later she was completely unconscious.

She’ll likely never set foot in a sociable public place again.

@SirensofTitan if the police are not warning of the use of needle attack in that piece then they are certainly doing nothing to dispel the myth. It does read to to me as if injection is what they mean, but if it's not then there is no line there to suggest that they are exploring drink spiking- the first line mentions injection spiking and nothing else.