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University research shows drink spiking rumours displace fear about losing control from alcohol

According to research led by the University of Kent and reported in the latest issue of The British Journal of Criminology, the perception of a drink spiking threat has become so pervasive that students think it is a more important factor in sexual assault than being drunk, taking drugs or walking alone at night. Rituals to protect drinks from contamination with sedative drugs, such as taking drinks to the toilet in clubs and bars and buying only bottled drinks, have become commonplace. The fear has also created a market for products designed to prevent drink spiking or reveal the presence of hypnotic drugs.

The research team, led by Dr Adam Burgess from the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research at the University of Kent, set out to investigate why there was such a pervasive belief when systematic police investigations have found no evidence that drink spiking is commonly implicated in sexual assaults. The researchers surveyed and interviewed students in three UK locations and one in the USA about the threat. They discovered that female students regularly judged certain 'bad-night-out episodes' (loss of memory, blackouts, ill feeling and dizziness) as likely to be related to tampering of drinks rather than the quantity of alcohol consumed.

Findings include:

• that students expressed more worry about spiking than being a victim of drink-driving, a mugging or burglary;
• that spiking was identified as a more important risk factor for sexual assault than being drunk, walking alone at night, after having taken drugs (at home), and when walking in an area where crime is known to be high;
• that students routinely protect their drinks, never accepting drinks from 'strangers';
• that there is widespread disbelief, or active denial, that excess alcohol could cause the same incoherence, physical distress and incapacity associated with 'date rape' drugs;
• and that, among young people, drink spiking stories have attractive features that could 'help explain' their disproportionate loss of control after drinking alcohol.

Dr Burgess, a Senior Lecturer in Sociology, said: 'Young women appear to be displacing their anxieties about the consequences of consuming what is in the bottle onto rumours of what could be put there by someone else. The reason why fear of drink spiking has become widespread seems to be a mix of it being more convenient to guard against than the effects of alcohol itself and the fact that such stories are exotic - like a more adult version of 'stranger danger'. Our findings suggest that guarding against drink spiking has also become a way for women to negotiate how to watch out for each other in an environment where they might well lose control from alcohol consumption.'

Dr Sarah Moore of Royal Holloway, who collaborated on the research, said 'Respondents described parents warning about drink spiking and buying them drink protection products. We would be very interested in finding out whether the urban myth of spiking is also the result of parents feeling unable to discuss with their adult daughters how to manage drinking and sex and representing their anxieties about this through discussion of drink spiking risks.'

Nick Ross, broadcaster and chair of the Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science commented on the research findings: '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. As Burgess observes, it is not scientific evidence which keeps the drug rape myth alive but the fact that it serves so many useful functions.'

Contact: mediaoffice@kent.ac.uk

Story published at 10:01am 27 October 2009