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

[SeptemberGurl]

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?

It is literally physically and medically impossible to both evaluate and administer the “correct” dose of a drug (the amount needed to make someone more suggestible and vulnerable, but not so much that they become immediately unconscious or dead) by jabbing them with a needle in the arm or back or leg. Even if you did correctly estimate the victim’s weight and measure the right dose to the milligram in a crowded club, you would need a large needle and for the victim to stay still and allow you to carefully complete the incredibly painfully intramuscular injection (definitely not just “a scratch” think large needle at least an inch deep), which would take at least 5 seconds but probably longer, without moving or jerking away. While some nasty types may be taking advantage of this hysteria to jab people with pins to frighten them, that’s not the same (and they’re only being emboldened by this idiocy).

Women are not being protected by accepting this absolute twaddle as truth. Actual predators, however, are quite happily carrying on while this idiotic distraction is swallowed wholesale by people who should know better.

@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.

Yes, reported. I'm willing to bet that A LOT more goes unreported. There are literally women in here saying they were raped while spiked and still didn't report it. So yeah, throw so more numbers onto those figures.

I think spiking definitely happens, I'm sure some people have been spiked by injection but I don't think every story of someone getting spiked is necessarily a true spiking.

I think the majority of spiking is probably someone you know, a man at a party adding more alcohol to your drink. A friend who thinks its funny to add something to your drink. It's more likely to happen in parties than clubs, or predrinks because it's easier to keep the victim close to you.

It is incredibly hard to inject someone without them knowing. Especially as you'd have to really shove the fluid in to get it in quick enough. I try everyday with children to unsheath a needle and inject them without them noticing too much, and it's really not easy. I can confirm almost all of them know they are being injected, even if we can minimise the discomfort

I do know in my day at uni we'd have discussions about how we were probably spiked, but most of the time the person who thought they'd been spiked had actually drunk a lot, hadn't eaten that day etc and had actually got progressively more drunk. So whilst some of the cases will be true spiking, they won't all be. Friend x would say they'd only had 2 vodka cokes but they were about 200ml of vodka in each. I think university students saying there's a lot of spiking can be a bit of heresay.

You'd get 'oh I heard A was spiked on friday' and you'd done 5 shots of tequila with A at the bar, so actually a hadn't had the 2 WKD knock offs theyd claimed. Then next week b would be spiked but b had drunk 4 pints and smoked a large joint before getting in the taxi, so it's no surprise they were sick and it would get into a bit of a spiral. The more people who said they'd been spiked the more people thought they'd been spiked. Some of them probably had but a lot of the reasons people knew they'd been spiked weren't actually true. 'I think I was spiked because I only had one bottle of carribean twsist' well what about that bottle of out of date mixed schnapps we shared? There were lots and lots of stories at the time

Questioning the prevalence of a phenomenon isn't the same as saying it doesn't exist. It also isn't calling into question the experiences of those that are reporting it.

I've been spiked. I had just gone into the bar straight after work and bought a glass of wine, had about a third and went to toilet. Apparently around half an hour later I was insensible. Luckily for me some workmates were in there & took me home. I didn't wake up until late morning. One of them had stayed overnight to make sure I was ok (female).

Anyone else fed up of the media calling it spiking? “Spiking” to me means cheeky teenagers putting a little rum in the fruit punch at prom. What is happening now is people, almost always women, being drugged. That’s gbh (where needles are used, because it breaks the skin) and also assault and poisoning. I feel the media minimise the crime by calling it spiking, and I think they do so because the victims of the crime are almost always female.

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

2019 is 2 years ago. What is being reported now seems to be an increase.

@Ozanj Er, none of those links say more than alcohol spiking is more common than use of drugs. Hardly surprising as alcohol is presumably more accessible.

But some of this links are as old as 2012, the most recent 2019, and what young people are reporting and experiencing is an increase in drug spiking this year.

Well said @AccidentallyOnPurpose

This thread is making me so angry.

Yes, I'm sure there are people who have drunk too much or drunk without eating and when tired etc and possibly said they think they were spiked but this pretending it doesn't happen is making me so angry on behalf of all those young people who have been violated in this way to then have people not believe it even happened

There are an awful lot of posters here saying variations of "I'm not victim blaming but... new drinkers... freshers week etc"
You ARE victim blaming and this thread is not helping.
I was spiked in a club nearly 20 years ago out with my friend. I wasn't drinking, I was meant to be the driver. I went very woozy and basically fell asleep in the toilets and later on my vomit was black and chalky. Ordinary small town nightclub. It happens. Stop saying it doesn't.

I think I was spiked years ago at uni, I ended up having sex with a guy and literally only have snap shots of it. I was basically passed out. I then fell asleep and went to find the toilet and was completely naked and couldn't find his room. His housemates had to guide me there.
It actually wasn't until the recent spiking incidents that I realised I think it was that I'd been spiked. I used to drink a LOT at uni on nights out but I'd never felt like that in my life. It felt VERY different to normal drunk.

My friends daughter got spiked in Liverpool laat weekend. Hospitalised.

I can remember same question being asked about date rape was it just woman changing their mind after having sex

Now it’s well they probably had too much to drink so blamed it on being spiked. There is a difference in how you feel that how we know

Why are we even asking this question and why are so many trying to dismiss women’s experiences same old shit again and again

Surely the discussion should be around why isn’t there more done to convict perpetrators and once again to believe women

And we know reports to the police of sexual violence is low.

With recent events do we really need to ask why ?

It would never have occurred to me to go to the police. It’s only very recently women have been encouraged to report any sexual violence or assault or harassment because the only rape considered worth reporting was being dragged off a street and raped by a stranger that was real rape the rest was questionable (actually our actions are always questioned)

On the specific point of successfully delivering a date rape type drug (including opiates etc.) via quick injection in a pub or club, I think a pp is right that there will be future articles (and a Fortean Times piece) examining it as a largely delusional phenomenon, something that melted away under investigation. Trouble is, there will be an increasing number of twats in the meantime stabbing women with needles as a 'prank', especially if the rumours and reports continue to swirl through SM.

I wondered if I was spiked once. I had about half a glass of red wine - and all of a sudden was very ill and threw up in the public toilet and then I was ok. Went really dizzy and sweaty. Was a horrible feeling - my first drink of the evening so wasn’t drunk!

So the women’s experiences that have been reported in the press recently are fiction ? Is that what you are saying

@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.

Disgusting isn't it. So much internalised misogyny from the handmaidens.

houseonthehill

On the specific point of successfully delivering a date rape type drug (including opiates etc.) via quick injection in a pub or club, I think a pp is right that there will be future articles (and a Fortean Times piece) examining it as a largely delusional phenomenon, something that melted away under investigation. Trouble is, there will be an increasing number of twats in the meantime stabbing women with needles as a 'prank', especially if the rumours and reports continue to swirl through SM.

And we are back to the early 1900s where women who were reacting to being sexually abused were labelled hysterical. I really thought we were more evolved than this.

You have no evidence for this and disbelief when people report incidents like this is dangerous. It stops people coming forward because they think they will be ridiculed or disbelieved. There are several posts upstream where significant sexual assaults have bit been reported because of this kind of archaic attitude.

I don't think it's a coincidencthat there are so many claims of being spiked now that young people are suddenly drinking/clubbing/partying again after 18 months of these places being closed.

I don't think they know how much they can handle, have too much to drink, and then assume they've been spiked.

Not to say it never happens though, as it clearly does.

houseonthehill

This from a BBC article about the concert in Texas:

"We do have a report of a security officer... that he was reaching over to restrain or grab a citizen and he felt a prick in his neck," Chief Finner said.

"When he was examined he went unconscious," he added. "He was revived and the medical staff did notice a prick that was similar to a prick that you would get if somebody is trying to inject."

Delusional though, yes?

@OhWhyNot

So the women’s experiences that have been reported in the press recently are fiction ? Is that what you are saying

I believe that there have been cases where women have been stabbed with needles - in some cases there have been visible marks. As far as I'm aware, there have been no subsequent discoveries of intoxicating/incapacitating agents found. It may be that some of these were actual attempts (ie involving a syringe and something to inject). And all reports need investigating.

As I say, I think a future assessment of the Needle Spiking phenomenon will be one those 'Social Contagion' things.

So you are dismissing their experience

Great. Usual shit women says this happened and it’s disbelieved and worse the patronising explanations of what probably happened

The person that I know, who got injected last night, has spent hours with police. All tests have been carried out and the police are investigating.

She had had 4 drinks and was out with family, luckily.

@houseonthehill see, also: needles, poison, and razor blades in Halloween candy in the US (huge outcry, media campaigns, hundreds of news stories and anecdotes) - there has been exactly one confirmed incident of poisoned sweets and it was a man trying to kill his own son. This whole thing is so similar, it’s eerie. I just hope the people here accusing us of victim blaming and worse remember and have the decency to feel a little sheepish when people calm down and realise how foolish this all was. Not just foolish, but dangerous- it distracts from the real risks and dangers that women face (namely, acquaintance assault and rape).