Drink Spiking - Harsh Reality or Urban Myth ?

Delancey · 07-09-2009 1:18pm #1

As a 999/112 Operator I've taken a fair number of calls from people alleging their nearest and dearest have had their drink 'spiked' and thus need an ambulance and/or Gardai to attend the scene .
This question is very much for the Guards and Paramedics who respond to these calls ; are these calls real ? Is drink spiking as widespread as would be suggested ?

I recall a couple of years ago the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre saying they had over 200 rapes/sexual assaults on record as having resulted from the victim having their drink ' spiked ' , not surprisingly the Evening Herald ran this story as a headline , but another newspaper ( the Sunday Tribune I think ) contacted the Garda Press Office who could not confirm a single instance of the above !

Where does the truth lie ?

DrIndy · 07-09-2009 1:27pm

its over-rated. I work in emergency medicine and by far the commonest spiking of drinks is in fact alcohol.

The person you are chatting to/up is in fact giving you doubles instead of singles etc. in the hopes of doing nefarious things. In other many cases - its a case of someone who just can't handle alcohol (alcohol metabolism follows a logarithmic curve, not a straight line - so one or two drinks if you are at that point can send you from pleasantly drunk to paralytic very rapidly.)

Actual and "true" spiking (such as with rohypnol) is in fact rare - particularily since they introduced a strong blue dye into the pills so it is readily visible.

I have seen a few drink spikings with non-alcohol substances - and they range from completely comatose to intermittent twitching. Drug tests in ED will not show most of these up as they are analogues of other substances (like GHB) so are useless. But what we do is make sure they are safe until they recover enough to go home.

mcguiver · 07-09-2009 2:33pm

I remember reading a medical report a few years ago. In it they basically said that out of all alleged drink spiking incidents that year ZERO had any traces of drugs etc.
100% showed large amounts of alcohal!!

There's an awfull lack of responsibility when it comes to alcohal in ireland, both by the drinker and the supplier (bar/off licence etc.)

I deal with very drunk females wandering the streets every week. Where are the friends that have been with them all night? Doesnt anyone look out for their maes anymore?

On occassions I've had to lift people for their own safety following reports of dodgy guys trying it on with them.

Scary stuff out there.

Paulzx · 07-09-2009 4:09pm

Mcguivers post is bang on. That report was issued by the sexual assualt unit in the Rotunda hospital. The only drug found in the blood of all the women they had tested including those who claimed there drink had been spiked was alcohol.

Thats not to say that it doesnt happen. Plenty of women never end up in the sexual assault unit

goldie fish · 07-09-2009 9:54pm

I was at a friends daughters 18th recently.
Spotted at one stage one of her friends handing her a shot and ordering her to "drink that", the question followed "what is it", to which she was told, "Just DRINK IT!".
This repeated throughout the night until parents and adults decided we had seen enough, and ..... Left them to their own devices!

In the many times I have been out drinking with young folk(dragged along usually to socialise with my RDF unit) this seems to be how they drink these days. Your friend hands you an alcoholic drink of some sort, and you drink it....

And then friends fall out, and the drinks become more interesting.

But what would I know. I'm a 7up man.

07-09-2009 10:41pm

to be honest, my opinion on it, and i know a judge who has described spiking as an "urban myth" shares my opinion...

woman in pub/club all night...goes out at 2.30am ish....fresh air hits them and wrecks them....i've seen it...stumble out of the club, 5 minutes later flat on their face

they spike themselves with TOO much alcohol

i'd love someone to film a documentary about the difficulties gardai, ambulance people and a&e staff face every night due to the demon drink

know the one thats one too many!!!

DrIndy · 08-09-2009 2:01am

I do believe there is underlying drink spiking going on though - but by far and away its simply too much alcohol whether intentional/unintentional or malicious.

But remember urine toxicology screens detect:

Benzodiazepines
Opiates
Methadone
Cannabis
Barbiturates
Amphetamines
Ecstacy (MDMA)
Cocaine
Tricyclic antidepressants

(I hope I haven't missed one or accidently added another in)

BUT - Zopiclone and Zolpidem (sleeping tablets) do not always show on these screens, GHB or liquid ecstacy does not show and many of the new manufactured drugs like Ice do not show up as stimulants. Ketamine is not detected.

Hence, they may be positive for alcohol but negative on dipstick. I do not believe that any samples are routinely sent for spectral analysis to detect all drugs as it is too expensive.

But - the rates of this are very low. To be spiked by sleeping tablets, you would really need to make a big effort to drink all the grit at the bottom and be too bolloxed to notice it first. Also GHB and Ketamine can cause intermittent severe agitation and hallucinations which is not the desired effect if you want to slip someone out of a pub quietly. Alcohol is much easier and more available.

Bang Bang · 08-09-2009 11:47am

In my experience as a Paramedic, almost every weekend amongst the many alcohol related calls we respond to, there's always at least 3 or 4 of those calls, more on very busy shifts, claiming that their drink or their friends drink was spiked because "they can handle their drink" "we've been drinking buddies for years and I've never seen her like this".
I have often followed up on these calls in the ED to find out that the only mind/body altering substance in their system was alcohol.

99% of these call involved young females who were totally incapable of doing anything for themselves due to alcohol intoxification.

The above are based on my own experiences and not based on any survey or hospital/HSE report.

eroo · 08-09-2009 2:48pm

I'm guessing this is how yer nights might go lads...
Friend:''He's had his drink spiked!''

ES:''How much did he have to drink?''

Friend:''Not much.. the usual like..''

ES:''And that is..?''

Friend:'' Ah sure only half a slab o' Dutch, a shoulder of Jack and then a few pints.. of vodka''

ES:''. . .''

Unfortunately, in this country the only way to measure how good a night you had is by how messed up you are the next day. ''It was some night.. I only lost 4 teeth and a fingernail!''

:rolleyes:

TheNog · 08-09-2009 8:48pm

In my experience I have had two complaints of drinks being spiked.

One I am not wholly convinced of but the second complaint appeared fairly suspicious to me. The lady's friends and from her own account (the next day) it seemed as if a particular male was trying his level best to take advantage of her. I spoke to the friends that night and non seemed overly intoxicated from alcohol and neither did the woman herself but she was totally out of it. Granted no complaint was made and so I received no medical analysis but I suppose call it a hunch.

artielange · 08-09-2009 9:01pm

Just read in a Sunday pullout interview with Jamie Foxx that it had happened to him in collage and has still not fully recovered. (pcp, angel dust)

Odysseus · 08-09-2009 10:35pm

DrIndy wrote: »

But remember urine toxicology screens detect:

Benzodiazepines
Opiates
Methadone
Cannabis
Barbiturates
Amphetamines
Ecstacy (MDMA)
Cocaine
Tricyclic antidepressants

(I hope I haven't missed one or accidently added another in)

BUT - Zopiclone and Zolpidem (sleeping tablets) do not always show on these screens, GHB or liquid ecstacy does not show and many of the new manufactured drugs like Ice do not show up as stimulants. Ketamine is not detected.

The lab we use doesn't test for MDMA, but it generally shows up under Amphetamines as E tabs generally contain some. We can request a specific test for the Z drugs, but it rare we do, as it costs too much.
IIRC tricyclics are part of the standard lab screen but I could be wrong.

Fremen · 09-09-2009 1:12am

DrIndy wrote: »

alcohol metabolism follows a logarithmic curve, not a straight line - so one or two drinks if you are at that point can send you from pleasantly drunk to paralytic very rapidly.

That's kind of interesting. What goes on what axis to produce the log curve?

UpstateEMS · 13-09-2009 9:57am

DrIndy wrote: »

alcohol metabolism follows a logarithmic curve, not a straight line

Dr. Indy,
You're spot on with your commentary on the reality of the "My drink has been spiked phenomenon." While there is something to be said for the relative lack of sensitivity of the urinary drug screen for some of the newer street drugs, I too feel that the vast majority of people are just looking for an excuse to cover for their excesses.

Just one quick point regarding alcohol metabolism. My understanding from pharmacology is that ethanol is one of the few drugs (similar to aspirin, phenytoin, and theophylline) that is metabolized via zero-order elimination. As such, it will be metabolized at a constant rate with some variability amongst individuals depending on their genetic makeup. The vast majority of all other drugs are metabolized via first-order elimination and as such generate a logarithmic curve.

Check out this curve from a NIH paper on alcohol metabolism. It does not have a logarithmic scale on the blood alcohol concentration y-axis.
http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/aa35.htm

The reason why this is important is that the linear elimination phenomenon allows government agencies to give out advice such as "You eliminate 1 unit of alcohol per hour. If you drink 4 pints of beer, you should wait 8 hours before you drive." If it was a case of first-order elimination, you would have to factor in half-lives and the amount of alcohol someone has already consumed.

DrIndy · 13-09-2009 10:07am

My bad - thought alcohol was part of the zero order crowd of drugs. Thanks for the correction.

Wuggectumondo · 13-09-2009 11:36am

In Mullingar a few months ago, 2 women got their drink spiked (BZP was in their blood test)

One of them didn't drink alcohol

Odysseus · 13-09-2009 1:15pm

Wuggectumondo wrote: »

In Mullingar a few months ago, 2 women got their drink spiked (BZP was in their blood test)

One of them didn't drink alcohol

I would wonder what that was about as BZP wouldn't really be a date rape drug. Was it just a malicious act, if so its hard to understand the psychology of the person behind it.

Drink Spiking - Harsh Reality or Urban Myth ?

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