Date Rape Drug - Overview and History

Overview and History

Sexual assault of people under the influence of alcohol or drugs is not new, and sexual assaults of people who have voluntarily consumed alcohol or drugs is common. It is also not new to slip something into somebody's drink to incapacitate them. However, it wasn't until the mid-1990s that law enforcement agents began to see a pattern of women being surreptitiously drugged for the purpose of rape, particularly through use of odorless, tasteless incapacitating drugs that produce anterograde amnesia.

Typically, the victim was consuming an alcoholic drink in a non-threatening social or business setting alongside others doing the same thing, when she lost awareness of what was happening. When she regained consciousness, hours later, she was often in a different location, there were signs she had been sexually assaulted (such as disarranged clothing, the presence of semen, or vaginal or anal soreness), she felt after-effects of substance use such as wooziness or confusion, and she had little or no memory of what had happened to her.