- Study surveyed more than 6,000 students at three universities in US
- 1 in 100 admitted drugging or knowing someone who had spiked a drink
- Motives included sexual assault, theft, to calm someone down or to sleep
- Warned it was possible some victims may simply have ‘drank too much’
Kate Pickles For Mailonline
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Drink spiking is far more common than we think and more than a fifth of victims are actually men, new research has revealed.
Since the 90s there have been tales of people having their drinks spiked with either drugs such as the Rohypnol, GHB or ketamine or extra shots of alcohol.
Researchers set out to explore whether drink spiking was a growing problem or more a cause of people simply drinking too much.
Dr Suzanne Swan of the University of South Carolina, looked at the survey data from 6,064 students at three universities.
Women were more likely to be the victims of spiking and reported more negative consequences such as rape, sexual assault or theft
The study found 462 students or 7.8 per cent reported 539 incidents in which they said they had been drugged.
And 83, or 1.4 per cent, said either they had drugged someone, or they knew someone who had drugged another person.
‘These data indicate that drugging is more than simply an urban legend,’ she said.
Women were more likely to be the victims of spiking and reported more negative consequences than men such as rape, sexual assault or theft, according to researchers.
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But men still accounted for 21 per cent of the victims.
Women were also more likely to report sexual assault as a motive while men more often said the purpose was ‘to have fun.’
Other, less common reported motives included to calm someone down or make someone go to sleep.
Yet Dr Swan warned: ‘Even if a person is drugging someone else simply ”for fun” with no intent of taking advantage of the drugged person, the drugger is still putting a drug in someone else’s body without their consent – and this is coercive and controlling behaviour.
‘We have no way of knowing if the drugging victims were actually drugged or not, and many of the victims were not certain either.
Motives for drugging people included sexual assault, theft or to calm someone down, the research claims
‘It is possible that some respondents drank too much, or drank a more potent kind of alcohol than they were accustomed to.’
Additionally, many common drugs, including over-the-counter medications, can interact with alcohol.
And victims often don’t remember what happened when they were drugged, she noted.
Two previous studies looking at US college students and young adults found anywhere from six to 8.5 per cent reported having been drugged by someone else.
One Australian study of 805 Australians, aged 18 to 35, found 25 per cent had experienced drink spiking.
The latest research warned students and young adults may be at more risk because they binge drink.
Researchers suggested interventions were needed to target those who carried out the spikings.
‘Because many of those who drug others believe that the behaviour is fun and minimise the risks, interventions could provide information about the dangers of overdosing.
‘They could also target the issue of consent.
‘Just as people have a fundamental right to consent to sexual activity, they also have the right to know and consent to the substances they ingest.’
The study was published in the journal Psychology of Violence.
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