The Belfast Rape Crisis Centre has recorded a dramatic increase in women who believe they were drugged and sexually assaulted. Cases have risen from eight to around 150 in two years.
The co-ordinator of the centre, Ms Eileen Caulder, says preliminary figures for 2000 register a similar level to 1999, when 120 women came forward. In 1998 the centre handled eight cases.
"This year we have been getting an average of three new calls a week from women who believe they may have been drugged and raped," said Ms Caulder.
In October, the first conviction for drug-assisted rape in Britain or Ireland was secured in Northern Ireland. A 42-yearold man from Islandmagee was given an eight-year sentence for drugging and sexually assaulting a teenager he kept in his flat for 24 hours in December 1997.
Ms Caulder stresses danger does not emanate exclusively from the notorious Rohypnol tablets or "roofies". "There are all sorts of concoctions being used on women that basically act as anaesthetics. A number of men have also come forward to us this year and believe they were victims," she says. A host of benzodiazepines are used, including Temazepam or Diphenhydramme. Ketamine and Gamma Hydroxybutyrate (GHB), or liquid ecstasy, can also leave a victim unconscious in minutes.
Dangerous cocktails of drugs have also been administered to victims. Ecstasy or cocaine can be mixed with a benzodiazepine to reduce the victim's inhibitions, while preventing them from sleeping so they can participate in sexual activity.
"I would say to women to be wary if you feel any way unusual . . . Like if you know you can drink a bottle of wine and still stand up, and you take two glasses of wine and suddenly feel very sick, dizzy or your legs aren't moving properly.
"If you're with trusted female friends tell them about it, and if not go to the management of the bar and get your parents or guardians to come and get you," advises Ms Caulder.
"What women should not do is go outside for a bit of fresh air. Women's recollections are unclear but often it seems to be exactly what the rapist or rapists are waiting for," she adds.
Ms Caulder says she worries that men who carry out drug rapes do not believe they are rapists because there is less violence involved and the women does not say no.
One victim, raped by two loyalist paramilitaries in 1998, still receives counselling in the Belfast centre. She was taken from a pub on the Shore Road in Belfast to a flat in Rathcoole, Co Antrim. The case was investigated by the RUC and evidence showed the women had had sexual intercourse with two men. However, she had no memory of the incident until she awoke to find a man having sexual intercourse with her. He stopped when she shouted out.
"When I eventually managed to get my clothes on I found I couldn't walk - my body just didn't work.
"I had to crawl from one room to the other and I couldn't reach the door to get out so I crawled onto the settee. I lay on there until the drugs wore off, then I had to make my way home the next morning."
The Northern Ireland Youth Forum made a recent television appeal to young people to be aware of the threat of drug rape over the Christmas period.
Ms Grainne Long, the deputy president of Queen's University Student Union, said a sticker campaign was launched after a spate of incidents involving students around the city. Union members circulated the college bar putting stickers on people's glasses when they weren't looking which read: "This could have been a rape drug."
"Some of the students were really shocked by the campaign so I guess it worked," said Ms Long.