A study of more than 200 students revealed many wrongly blamed the effects of a “bad night out” on date-rape drugs, when they had just drunk excessively.
Many are in “active denial” that drinking large amounts of alcohol can leave them “incoherent and incapacitated”, the Kent University researchers concluded.
Young women’s fears about date-rape drugs are so ingrained that students mistakenly think it is a more important factor in sexual assault than being drunk, taking drugs or walking alone at night.
. . .
Nick Ross, chair of the Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science, commented: “There is no evidence of widespread use of hypnotics in sexual assault, let alone Rohypnol, despite many attempts to prove the contrary.
“During thousands of blood and alcohol tests lots of judgement-impairing compounds were discovered, but they were mostly street drugs or prescription pharmaceuticals taken by the victims themselves, and above all alcohol was the common theme.”
. . .
Dr Burgess and his team questioned more than 200 students at universities in London and south east England.
Earlier this year, Australian researchers found that nont one of 97 young men and women admitted to hospital over 19 months to two Perth hospital claiming to have had their drinks spiked, had in fact been drugged.
I wonder if this same trend is present in America, and how often these suspicions turn into actual reports of rape (either to police or to researchers).
You can read pretty much everything I’ve written about the campus-rape incidence rate debate here. And of course Heather Mac Donald kicked off said debate with this piece. Hat tip for the Telegraph story to Overcoming Bias.