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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

... to wonder how prevalent "spiking" really is?

225 replies

SeptemberGurl · 06/11/2021 16:06

There's been a few reported incidents this term already at the Uni where my DD2 is studying. She is in her final year, and over the past years she's told me about two suspected incidences with her close friendship group.

I wish there were some better data on this. Is it really that common?

OP posts:
EdgeOfTheSky · 07/11/2021 10:04

[quote crikeycrumbsblimey]@Ponoka7 glad it isn’t just me

The victim blaming on this thread is completely disgusting.[/quote]
I agree.

Some of the posts in this thread show just how hard it is for women, especially young women, to be believed.

Just how hard the consent issue is when people dismiss the experiences of anyone ‘drunk’, and victim blame.

People: just because you don’t know anyone it has happened to doesn’t mean it isn’t common/ increasing.

If you don’t habitually go clubbing, to music venues etc, and know college / Uni aged young people then it probably isn’t on your personal radar.

Any experiences 20 years ago are irrelevant in judging today’s context.

The people it is happening to know the difference between being drunk and spiked. Their friends can see the difference.

The staff at venues need training.

There needs to be capacity for a quick test that can be done, available at clubs.

It seems to be being done as a sick ‘prank’ at the moment, thankfully not always as a ‘date rape’ scenario.

There needs to be research into what drugs people are using and what the supply mechanism is.

And stop the fucking smug ignorant complacent victim blaming from people who haven’t a clue!

BlackCountryWench2 · 07/11/2021 10:15

Apparently, there were 2600 reports of spiking from 2015 - 2019, so it’s hardly an epidemic. Counselling service Crew 2000 outlines the key examples of spiking, including “putting double measures in someone’s drink when they only asked for a single”, “topping up someone’s glass when they don’t notice”, “buying someone a drink when they are already drunk”, “giving someone a line and telling them it’s cocaine when it is actually ketamine”, or “giving someone less experienced with drugs or someone who is smaller in body size or frame the same dose as you”. So people getting pissed and taking drugs, then. Not exactly the same as some random stranger tampering with your drink in the hope that, what, you’ll collapse in the club so they can sexually assault you in a public place with hundreds of people about? It’s not an epidemic. It’s people getting drunk/drugged up and then blaming it on being spiked.

ellie21 · 07/11/2021 10:19

@BlackCountryWench2
Except that is exactly what is happened to me. Someone I did not know put drugs in my drink and sexually assaulted me. It happens.
It isn't always reported for a million reasons including

  1. shame
  2. not thinking anyone will believe you.
Comedycook · 07/11/2021 10:27

I once heard a woman say that she'd been spiked loads of times...I don't want to disbelieve anyone but it does seem like she either has extraordinary bad luck or she perhaps drinks way more than she thinks.

Helloise · 07/11/2021 10:29

Administering enough of any date rape drug to incapacitate someone to just the right level (enough to make them an easy victim, not so much that they immediately overdose and fall down) would be difficult enough in a brightly lit room by an experienced medical technician and a still, compliant injected. To get enough of the drug into someone intramuscularly rather than intravenously (for example by jabbing someone in the arm in a club) you would need a huge needle and at least 20 seconds of the victim standing still and allowing this painful injection to be completed. That of course wouldn’t happen- you would immediately fight off the person jabbing you because it would be immediately and intensely painful. And of course even if that weren’t the case the dosage issue remains- the line between “disinhibited but functioning” and “on the floor foaming at the mouth” would mean that at least a few of these alleged victims would be overdosing and even dying at the clubs. That hasn’t happened as far as I know.

This doesn’t mean that some women haven’t been jabbed with pins by people who want to frighten them, or of course that they haven’t been offered adulterated drugs in the normal way or had extra shots of alcohol added to their drinks by predators (who are almost certainly known to them, rather than strangers). But the “injection spiking” is logistically impossible. It does not help women to indulge this myth because it distracts from the very real problem of being cajoled or tricked into drinking or taking drugs beyond their limits by the men known to them. These men are the predators and they are being conveniently ignored and allowed to continue unchecked as their actions are blamed on imaginary strangers.

MintyGreenDream · 07/11/2021 10:30

Saw this on fb

... to wonder how prevalent "spiking" really is?
JustThisOneThing · 07/11/2021 10:47

I wondered about posting on this thread, but I’m shocked by the level of victim blaming and so have decided I will.

When I was spiked I was in my 30s, married with DC and had been out for dinner with colleagues where I drank 2 glasses of wine. A few of us then went on to a busy bar in central London. I had one spirit & mixer. My drink was on a table with other drinks, so admittedly I wasn’t watching it religiously, but I was with a group of colleagues I knew well at a table and felt ‘safe’.

I started feeling ill very quickly - headache and vision blurred. I said I was leaving and started walking to the tube station 5 minutes away. It was about 8pm, busy out and I didn’t feel in danger, just desperate to get hone to bed.

I don’t remember anything else about that night, but I was abducted from the street and woke up around 14 hours later in a terrible state in an abandoned house miles away. I’d been raped, robbed and beaten up.

I felt such terrible shame over it. I didn’t think I’d be believed. I was deeply shocked and traumatised. I did go to a rape crisis centre and had forensics done and made an initial statement. My bloods and urine didn’t show up anything.

I didn’t pursue it with the police exactly because of the sorts of attitudes some posters have shown here. I couldn’t bear the thought of being doubted.

I can’t imagine how a young woman who had been out drinking would have felt. Awful.

I know I was spiked. I was completely unconscious for 14 hours. 3 drinks doesn’t do that to me. It was also the way it affected my memory. I have only had one tiny flashback from that night and that was of a man on top of me and the side of his face (a stranger).

Men spike women - whether it’s with extra shots of alcohol, street drugs or ‘date rape’ drugs - precisely because it renders them unconscious or incoherent, and thus even more easy to doubt in a system that barely manages to convict rapists in the first place.
It should be taken a lot more seriously by society.

Helloise · 07/11/2021 10:48

I remember a few years ago I was visiting my cousin, his wife, and their new baby and my cousin and I split a 6 pack of fairly strong American craft beer after dinner. That would normally be enough to give me a decent buzz but that’s about it. This time, however, I was completely wasted- slurring, asking for cigarettes (completely unheard of for me) and I apparently had a crying fit about a childhood argument with my cousin and fell down the back steps before they got me in bed. I remembered about half of what actually happened. If this had happened at a bar or club, I am certain I would have thought I’d been spiked- but I was just tired from travelling and hadn’t eaten enough of my dinner (my cousin isn’t a great cook 😬).

Predators attack women known to them by encouraging to drink or take more, or by slipping them shots, or by identifying women who are already fucked up and targeting them. “Stranger” spiking happens but is probably very rare just because, logistically, it’s exceedingly difficult and would have an astronomically low success rate- you would have to get the dosage exactly right so that the victim was exactly the right amount of impaired AND get her alone and back to your house without her friends noticing her leaving with a stranger. You’d also have to figure out how to get her home or out of your house without her making a connection about what happened and why she is with some stranger. It just doesn’t compute. And it’s not victim blaming to say this. We need to protect victims not by indulging scary false fantasies but by pointing out that the men they need to protect themselves from are almost always the ones they already know. These predators are the only ones being protected by “injection spiking” and “stranger drink spiking” stories.

spotcheck · 07/11/2021 10:49

Apparently, there were 2600 reports of spiking from 2015 - 2019, so it’s hardly an epidemic

2600 ~reported~ instances. What about unreported? I bet 2600 is the tip of the iceberg.
And 2600 attacks on mostly young, vulnerable women. Perhaps not an epidemic, but still cause for real concern

AccidentallyOnPurpose · 07/11/2021 10:51

@BlackCountryWench2

Apparently, there were 2600 reports of spiking from 2015 - 2019, so it’s hardly an epidemic. Counselling service Crew 2000 outlines the key examples of spiking, including “putting double measures in someone’s drink when they only asked for a single”, “topping up someone’s glass when they don’t notice”, “buying someone a drink when they are already drunk”, “giving someone a line and telling them it’s cocaine when it is actually ketamine”, or “giving someone less experienced with drugs or someone who is smaller in body size or frame the same dose as you”. So people getting pissed and taking drugs, then. Not exactly the same as some random stranger tampering with your drink in the hope that, what, you’ll collapse in the club so they can sexually assault you in a public place with hundreds of people about? It’s not an epidemic. It’s people getting drunk/drugged up and then blaming it on being spiked.
No one said it's just random strangers. One of the reasons listed is also "as a prank". It's actually more likely that someone you know did it. However, the identity of the perpetrator is irrelevant to the "does it happen" question.
MurielSpriggs · 07/11/2021 10:53

@Helloise

And it’s not victim blaming to say this.

I agree. Victim blaming is suggesting that the victim of crime brought it on themselves.

Mickarooni · 07/11/2021 11:18

YABU. While I suspect some people who are convinced they were spiked actually were not….I bet there are even more people who thought they were “just drunk” when they’ve been spiked.

Ozanj · 07/11/2021 11:24

Alcohol spiking is very common. Spiking with drugs not as much.

randomchap · 07/11/2021 11:26

FullFact produced an interesting article on needle spiking last month.

fullfact.org/crime/spiking-by-needle-injection/

Drink spiking with alcohol has been going on for years. Doubles instead of singles, buying stronger drinks than was asked for etc.

There will be an element of people overestimating how much alcohol they can handle and thinking they were spiked but there will also definitely be people being spiked with extra/hidden alcohol.

I was at a bar recently that only did pre-mixed drinks. That seemed to be a sensible precaution to stop people buying doubles instead of singles.

Thelnebriati · 07/11/2021 11:26

@JustThisOneThing I couldn't read your post and not comment, I hope you're OK. Flowers

People underestimate the effect this kind of assault has, including the angst about whether to report or not, wondering who did it, and the months of waiting for STD and pregnancy test results.

Twelveshoes · 07/11/2021 11:28

This thread is full of people basically saying ‘I got unusually drunk but it was because I had been drinking so people who think they have been spiked are mistaken.’

Having your drink spiked is not at all like getting drunk.

ChequerBoard · 07/11/2021 11:37

I agree it's very common. DD at Uni has had friends that have been spiked. It's also very under reported, DD took friend to hospital as she was still feeling the effects and after a very long wait was told to go home as it would have left her system by now.

No record, no testing, nothing.

Helloise · 07/11/2021 11:54

@Twelveshoes

This thread is full of people basically saying ‘I got unusually drunk but it was because I had been drinking so people who think they have been spiked are mistaken.’

Having your drink spiked is not at all like getting drunk.

I regularly took benzos and ketamine during my misspent youth and I absolutely disagree. An incapacitatedly drunk person would not be able to tell the difference between alcohol + more alcohol vs. alcohol+benzos or even alcohol + ket, even if they did all of these drugs regularly and willingly at other times. I don't know about the other supposedly common date rape drug, GHB, as I've never tried it, but according to ye olde internet it's actually quite expensive and hard to get hold of and very difficult to dose correctly. A predator has a much better (and cheaper) chance of a successful attack just by splashing some more vodka into his victim's drink, or by staying sober enough himself to target the woman who is getting the most drunk and who is the most on the "outskirts" of the friend group (and therefore the easiest to separate and remove to another location). Occam's razor and all that.

The continual and wilful insistence that most people here have to focus on the least likely vector of attack - strangers doing magic sleight-of-hand tricks or incredibly difficult medical procedures in dark clubs to spike or inject women with expensive drugs - these fantastical urban legends- This nonsense DOES NOT PROTECT WOMEN. All it does is ensure women are looking the wrong way while the real predators, the men they already know, get away scot free with date rape and sexual assault.

FlowerFlour · 07/11/2021 12:20

@RoomOfRequirement

This thread is so gross.

Of course it couldn't me that men are drugging us. Oh no, those stupid little girls definitely just drank too much.

The victim blaming is strong on MN. As always.

Agree. Some of these posters must lead very sheltered / oblivious lives.

I was spiked when I was young. The first time when I was 17 and went out with a new boyfriend and his friends. One of them slipped an E in my drink, not because they wanted to attack me; they just thought it would be funny to see me high.

The second time I was 18 on one of my first work nights out. A much older colleague was apparently buying me quadruple vodka and cokes instead of singles. I blacked out and woke up at his house with him anally raping me. I didn't report it because I blamed myself and was ashamed.

My former housemate was spiked on a quiet night out with just the two of us when we were in our late 20s. We had both only had a couple of drinks and were chatting, when a man came over to chat to her and was really aggressively leaning over the table, blocking my view of her. I made him leave her alone, but then 15 minutes later she had a complete breakdown with a panic attack and paranoia so we went straight home where she spent all night semi conscious, vomiting foam and crying. When we reported it to the bar the next day in the hopes they might have it on CCTV they just said maybe she drank too much.

People love minimising any attacks on women. It's the same as juries generally only convicting rapes if it's 'stranger in a dark alley' rape. If you knew your attacker or had been drinking beforehand you're shit out of luck. You'll be told it's your own fault, you were probably asking for it, you got too drunk and are now playing the victim. It makes me sick.

Suspiciousmind20 · 07/11/2021 12:27

Comedycook

However I have never heard of someone who is totally teetotal and hasn't drunk at all, finding themselves in this situation.

Firstly - read the full thread. There are a few examples here.

Secondly, let me introduce you to..

HeyFloof

Who wrote:

10 or so years ago, when I was working in night clubs, I was spiked. I didn't drink at work (it was allowed), but pretended I did so that when customers would "buy me a drink" i would say that I would have one later and have the money as tips etc. I had a drink bought for me, and between it leaving the bar, and getting to my hostess stand, it was spiked. I went from being completely sober to being virtually unable to stand.

More generally, I am really starting to feel annoyed by the tone in some posts. The victim blaming and total disregard for people’s first hand experience is so invalidating. I’m sure there might be those that believe they have been spiked but have just forgotten quite how much they had, however, this should not be the ‘go to’ assumption. There are a number of posts on this thread where people have courageously shared horrific personal experiences. We have an horrific incident reported in today’s papers about an awful situation with a number of people being spiked by injection (AKA attempted GBH or murder).

Assuming it’s usually someone has just had a bit too much to drink is such a crappy and dangerous attitude. It reminds me of the label ‘hysteria’ that was given to women who were suffering the effects of sexual abuse in the early 1900’s. Surely we have evolved past this by now?

AreYouRightThereSkippy · 07/11/2021 12:32

I know a couple of people it has definitely happened to. Definitely not alcohol as the effects were different. One seemed to be ketamine. Why anyone would spike anyone with that I don't know. That person was a guy and nothing else happened to him luckily, so I think it was just someone spiking him for mischief. Scary though. The other person was spiked with something that made her basically pass out and she couldn't use her limbs. Luckily she was safely home by then but still scary.

I also knew a girl whose dickhead boyfriend spiked her food with LSD "for a joke". Horrible for her.

Suspiciousmind20 · 07/11/2021 12:33

Ozanj

Alcohol spiking is very common. Spiking with drugs not as much.

Your source or expertise please? Please don’t talk with this degree of certainty without backing your claims up.

Ozanj · 07/11/2021 12:33

@Twelveshoes

This thread is full of people basically saying ‘I got unusually drunk but it was because I had been drinking so people who think they have been spiked are mistaken.’

Having your drink spiked is not at all like getting drunk.

Alcohol spiking is the single most common form of spiking and it is like getting drunk.
ChloeCrocodile · 07/11/2021 12:34

While I suspect some people who are convinced they were spiked actually were not….I bet there are even more people who thought they were “just drunk” when they’ve been spiked.

I completely agree with this.

You do need to factor in the A&E response to an incapacitated person as well. When my sister ended up in hospital after half a bottle of wine the doctors point blank refused to believe that was all she’d had - even telling her best friend that she was harming her friend by persisting in the “lie”. It wasn’t until my dad arrived (and explained DSis had been in a minor car accident earlier in the day) that they accepted her condition wasn’t down to drugs or excess alcohol. I can easily imagine that if she’d been spiked rather than in an accident the doctors would never have believed it.

I understand that many times an incapacitated person is simply drunk has taken drugs. But the assumption that everyone is could be dangerous and is likely to lead to under reporting of spiking.

Ozanj · 07/11/2021 12:38

@Suspiciousmind20

Ozanj

Alcohol spiking is very common. Spiking with drugs not as much.

Your source or expertise please? Please don’t talk with this degree of certainty without backing your claims up.

Anyone with common sense would realise it. But fair enough if you want links let me educate you for free:

www2.hse.ie/conditions/drink-spiking-date-rape-drugs/

casapalmera.com/blog/effects-of-drugs-used-in-drink-spiking/

www.nottinghamshire.police.uk/advice/spiked-drinks

adf.org.au/insights/drink-spiking/