Despite fears about the link between spiked drinks and rape, it seems alcohol on its own can be the biggest problem. Kathy Sheridan looks atthe evidence
The headlines are stark. "Drug rape reports rocket". "Drug-assisted rapes double over one year". The figures appear to back them up.
Reports of drug-assisted rapes to the Limerick Rape Crisis Centre rose from two in 1999 to 29 in 2001. Nationally, the Rape Crisis Network handled 130 cases last year, double the number for 2000.
Anecdotally, the figure is much higher. Stories of lost hours and near-misses are commonplace.
The Department of Justice, worried that rape is falling off the agenda, is concerned enough to launch a public awareness campaign, coming soon in poster form. The drug usually implicated is Rohypnol, dubbed the "date-rape drug" or the "forget-me pill" (a potent tranquiliser which can be legitimately prescribed by doctors for severe sleep disorders).
The Rape Crisis Network has said it believes it to be the drug responsible in many cases. Most college student handbooks have warned against it. The heading on the laminated notices around McGowan's pub on Dublin's Phibsboro Road reads: "ROHYPNOL - LADIES BE AWARE".
The only problem is that there is hardly a shred of evidence to support it. Firstly, all sides agree that Rohypnol has never been a "rape drug" in Ireland or in the UK. Secondly, no "rape drug" of any kind has been detected in tests either here or in the North. While more than 60 drugs have been detected in the toxicology of rape victims, there is no evidence, even in the US, to suggest that "drug-rape" is a widespread phenomenon. The chances of someone being assaulted while falling down drunk are incomparably greater than while under the influence of a spiked drink.
The scene from Roddy Doyle's The Snapper, where a fiftysomething neighbour takes advantage of a helplessly drunk young woman on a car bonnet - and mutters "Good girl, Sharon", while zipping up afterwards - may be less sensational than if she had been knocked out with a "rape drug", but much more true to life.
The possible use of Rohypnol was considered in 21 cases at the Rotunda's Sexual Assault Treatment Unit (SATU) in 2000; none showed up in tests.
The challenge to those investigating drug-assisted rape is the speed with which drugs - and the evidence - are eliminated from the body. But despite the media mystique, Rohypnol remains in the body longer than most. The increasing sophistication of testing techniques means it can be detected within a 72-hour period, although for admissibility in court, 24 hours is considered optimal.
Surprisingly, most people who suspect they've been assaulted and decide to report it, tend to do so fairly promptly. "Most of our clients come in quite quickly, usually by nine the next morning," says Dr Mary Holohan, a Rotunda consultant and director of the SATU. This is borne out elsewhere. In a forensic analysis involving more than 3,303 samples taken from people who claimed to have been sexually assaulted after being drugged, 72 per cent had reported within 24 hours and 98 per cent within 72 hours.
ElSohly et al, whose study was undertaken on a US database, and published in the Journal of Clinical Forensic Medicine, drew straight conclusions. The analysis, they write, "does not support the concept of a commonly occurring 'date rape' scenario, in which the victim's drink is covertly 'spiked', and it "does not support the contention that any single drug, apart from alcohol, can be particularly identified as a 'date rape' drug. Rather, the alleged sexual assaults may often take place against a background of licit or recreational alcohol or drug use, where alcohol and other drugs are frequently taken together."
While no drug was detected in 1,277 of the 3,303 samples, alcohol was by far the commonest substance in the remainder, present in 67 per cent of the positive samples, alone or in combination with other drugs (combinations being a vivid feature of these samples). Cannabis was the second most common, found in 613. Just 11 of the samples contained flunitrapezam (Rohypnol).
There is a caveat. GHB, the second "rape drug" heavily flagged in the media, retains a question mark. GHB, like alcohol, needs to be tested for within 12 hours. On the flip side, such a high finding of alcohol should also have detected a proportionate finding for GHB - if it was there. In fact, GHB was detected in 100 samples, in 61 of which it was the sole drug.
But what does this mean? Was it there because in low doses it induces euphoria and is used recreationally? Or because it is used by athletes who believe it to be a strength enhancer? Or because in high doses it causes sedation and amnesia and can be used to facilitate a rape? Were some of these allegations a product of confusion or disturbed memory due to the drug combinations?
The Drug Rape Trust, a UK charity run by Detective Chief Insp Peter Sturman of the Metropolitan Police, concedes that less than 2 per cent of UK samples show traces of "rape drugs", but cautions that due to delays in reporting and because some drugs leave the body "about eight hours" after an incident, "negative toxicology" should always be assumed.
The upshot is that no one can be sure where the truth lies.
In Britain, the Home Office talks of the risks being "exaggerated". The trust - which claims to have spoken to 2,000 complainants - finds these comments "disappointing".
But drug-rape happens - there have been seven convictions in the UK - and no responsible authority can afford to close its mind to it. This is why Nicola Murphy of the Department of Justice, under former junior minister, Mary Wallace, made it her business to attend conferences and speak to publicans, such as John McGowan.
McGowan's concern was born of an alleged spiking incident in his pub on New Year's Eve 1999. Nothing came of it, but he played safe, placing notices around the pub. They're still there, as a warning to potential victims and perpetrators: "Any male leaving these premises in the sole company of a female who appears incapable may be asked by our security staff for ID or car registration to verify his bona fides. We are sorry for any hassle this may cause but make no apology for putting your safety first."
Like many others, however, John McGowan admits he's "a bit sceptical" about the rape-drug phenomenon.
It is beyond dispute that alcohol is the most common rape drug. The Drug Rape Trust says so repeatedly: "Alcohol shows up in complainants 29 times more often than all the other drug-rape drugs put together."
The Los Angeles County District Attorney's office has a poster with the message: "Alcohol - the original date rape drug. Say no while you still can."
Many gardaí here and police in the North firmly believe alcohol is the main problem.
So does Dr Mary Holohan. Out of 253 attendances at the SATU in 2000, 38 were seen "to evaluate the possibility of a sexual crime because of memory loss after ingestion of large amounts of alcohol". Of the 21 people tested for Rohypnol (all negative), 19 had taken considerable amounts of alcohol, "six units that they can remember, some up to 21 units that they can remember - but they're saying that one of these must have been spiked.
"One girl had been drinking Bacardi Breezers and ordering double Bacardis to put into them. Another had had 10 pints of Budweiser, followed by half a bottle of vodka but still believed a drink had been spiked - 'I drink that regularly on a Friday night and this hasn't happened to me before'.
"What often happens is a group goes back to someone's house, fall into different beds, one of them wakes up in the morning with her clothing in disarray and spends the rest of her life wondering - 'did something happen'?"
Dr Holohan is not apportioning blame. Like everyone in this field, she is careful to point out that any man who has intercourse with a girl who is inebriated is being "reckless with her consent", andthat amounts to rape. But equally, as a doctor at the coalface, she is concerned that alcohol as a factor in rendering people vulnerable to such assaults, is being glossed over.
"In my six years as director of the unit, I would have seen not so much a change in the number of people having taken alcohol, but a change in the number wondering if something happened. The way we drink alcohol in this country now is putting people at risk of needing to come to the Sexual Assault Treatment Unit in the Rotunda Hospital," she says. "If you are going out to drink, make sure someone is minding you and will bring you home."
All of this is happening against a background of a 10 per cent rise in "stranger" rape (rape by a stranger), now at 32 per cent, according to the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre (DRCC) statistics. Some 34 per cent of the DRCC's callers were aged 15 to 19.
"What I take from this is that there is increased violence in society and increased vulnerability in young women," says Muireann O Briain, chief executive of the DRCC. "There is not enough awareness of dangerous situations, of being with people you don't know, of leaving a group of people you know with someone you don't know or socialising far from somewhere you can get transport easily. Young men are also very vulnerable, but still finding it very difficult to come forward when something happens."
The SAVI report, a major study published by the DRCC this year, suggested 42 per cent of women and 28 per cent of men have suffered some form of sexual abuse in their lifetime. Yet nearly half of the women and 60 per cent of the men had never mentioned it to another living soul. We have a long way to go.
Reported Sexual Assaults
By Whom 2000 2001
Stranger 21% 32%
Husband/partner 10% 5%
Boyfriend 9% 9%
Date rape 8% 8%
Brother 3% 3%
Other male relative 2% 4%
Father 1% 2%
Other known person 46% 37%
Figures from the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre