Des Moines Register
09-12-07
Carlson: Woman has close call with date-rape drug
John Carlson
Register columnist
The young woman said she was telling her story so Iowans would understand
what is happening around college campuses.
She was with friends in a crowded bar and was left alone at a table for a few
minutes. She turned her head briefly to speak with fellow students at a nearby
table and that, she believes, is when somebody walked by and dropped
something in her drink.
The 22-year-old woman, a senior at one of Iowa's state universities, absolutely
swears she had two light beers and one rum and Coke over a three-hour period.
Nothing more.
But she quickly was in a staggering, slobbering, incoherent stupor.
Her friends returned to the table - they had been gone maybe 15 minutes - and
assumed she had been slamming shots.
They got her outside and she fell, hitting her head on the pavement. She spent
the next six or seven hours in a friend's apartment, alternately throwing up and
passing out.
She had very little memory of what happened when she tried to put it all together
the next day. The friends filled in some pieces and it became an easy puzzle to
solve.
"Somebody put a date-rape drug in my drink," she said. "There's no doubt about
it."
The young woman was lucky. Her friends got her away from whatever thug
drugged her, almost certainly saving her from sexual assault. But she can guess
why she was singled out.
"I was at the table alone for a while and whoever did it probably thought, well,
here's this girl all by herself. They would wait until the drug hit me and then get
me outside."
Unheard of?
"It happened to my best friend last year," she said.
There's no way to know how often a college student - or any woman in a bar
anywhere - is subjected to this. Too often it's the next day before they realize
what happened to them and why. Urine and blood tests need to be performed
within hours after ingestion to confirm a drug was administered and even then,
medical workers sometimes tell victims they probably just had too much to drink.
Just know that the drugs are out there and are fairly easy to find. There are three
such drugs and the symptoms are similar - slurred speech, dizziness, loss of
consciousness - and a drugged woman is often unable to resist an attacker, call
for help or remember much of what happened.
"What the woman told you is consistent with what we see," said Kris Olds at
Iowa State University and head of the Story County Sexual Assault
Response Team. "People don't remember what happened and often don't report
it, so it's hard catching up with whoever did it to them. We don't see a lot of it
here, but it's certainly around. It's not hard to find on a college campus."
The numbers at the Rape Victim Advocacy Program in Iowa City are staggering.
"We have documented 32 instances of rape victims who were given one of these
drugs in the most recent 12-month reporting period," said Karla Miller, executive
director of the program. "These numbers are conservative. We have no idea how
many weren't reported. So yes, it's a problem. Women really need to know how
to protect themselves."
Joe Tyler, an investigator with the University of Northern Iowa police, said his
office does not see much of the drugs.
"Just because it isn't reported doesn't mean it isn't happening," Tyler said. "We
tell people again and again to be on guard against this. Never lose sight of your
drink. Never leave your drink unattended. We call that a 'dead drink.' If you lose
track of your drink for any length of time at all, get rid of it."
Other suggestions: Never accept a drink from somebody unknown to you, either
in a bar or at a party; never share a drink; and never drink from a punch bowl or
other open container.
The woman told me her story on a day that news broke about two weekend
attacks on women at the University of Iowa - that makes it 31 reported there over
the past year - and a reported attack of a young woman on the UNI campus in
Cedar Falls on Sunday.
Most were instances of grabbing and groping.
Date-rape drugs are something else entirely.
The only way to keep it from happening is for young women to stay out of bars.
No chance of that.
But the young woman on the phone told me she was going to follow a friend's
advice if she decides to go back.
"I'm getting nothing in a bar but bottled beer," she said, passing along a pretty
good idea. "And I'm keeping my thumb on the top. Nobody is ever going to do
that to me again."
Columnist John Carlson can be reached at (515) 284-8204 or
jcarlson@dmreg.com