According to the 2015 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 97,000 students between the ages of 18 and 24 report experiencing alcohol-related sexual assault or date rape.
An alcohol-facilitated sexual assault could easily become a drug-facilitated assault by adding drugs or roofying the drink. According to a survey conducted in 2016, 7.8 percent of students reported that their drinks were roofied. Representatives of STOP Violence Program and SAFE Project at UW say drink spiking also happens in Laramie.
“Drug-facilitated sexual assault absolutely happens. There are national cases where it was proven that it happened. So, I have no reason to believe that it doesn’t happen in Laramie,” Megan Selheim, victim advocate at STOP Violence Program, said.
“Roofie,” “rufi,” “ruffy” are slang words for Rohypnol (or Flunitrazepam), a sedative drug and muscle relaxant. In clubs, bars and parties roofies are used as date-rape drugs, deceitfully dissolved in a person’s drink to make her lose consciousness and become an easy target for a sexual assault.
There are a few types of drugs used as date-rape drugs: Flunitrazepam (Rohypnol); gamma-hydroxybutyric acid (GHB), also called liquid ecstasy; and ketamine, also called Special K. These drugs can be found in forms of pills, liquids or powders. They can be easily and quickly dissolved in drinks.
“It happens more at the parties. I haven’t heard a lot about cases happening in the bars, but it does happen, definitely. Because people are awful. I heard of people getting roofied drinks in Fort Collins. And they got to the hospitals. However, I don’t know how many cases happen here in Laramie,” Desirae Laird, the bartender at The Cowboy Saloon & Dancehall, said.
There are not many reports about drink spiking and drug-facilitated sexual assaults in Laramie because sometimes people don’t even know that they were drugged or don’t find it’s necessary to report the case.
“In cases I had, someone was coming and said, that they were drugged, and described that their experience of becoming intoxicated didn’t end up with how much they were drinking. Student comes in and say ‘Something happened, and I don’t remember all of it, or it’s fuzzy, but I didn’t have that much of a drink.’ Their personal experience of how their body responds to alcohol was not consistent with that party, or evening. So, their best guess is that there was something additional in the drink that made them feel much more drunk,” Selheim said.
The problem with date-rape drugs is that they are metabolized very quickly, and it’s hard to find them in the body the morning after the party.
“One of the traditional date-rape drugs, called GHB, leaves the body very, very quickly. So, often by the time someone wakes up and decides to go to the hospital, drug[s] cannot be found in the body anymore. It’s metabolized so quickly, that it’s hard to actually confirm someone was roofied,” says Selheim. “It also makes it hard to know for sure what is actually happening.”
The best way to prevent the drink from being spiked is never to leave the glass unattended.
“You order a drink, you keep it, motherf—er, in your hand. If you f—ing leave it on the bar, go outside, hang out with your friend and come back, you never know what piece of shit customer on other side of the bar is sitting and watching you and your drink,” Shea Towne, the bartender at Buck Horn Bar, said.
Bartenders in downtown Laramie know that the drinks of their customers could be roofied. So, they try to keep eye on customers and their drinks and try to prevent cases of spiking drinks.
“The prevention of roofies happens all the time. It happens when some guy comes up, and orders four drinks, and it’s just him. It happens when it’s one guy asking two drinks, and there is no other person around him ever,” Austin Scott, manager of Buck Horn Bar, said. “In such cases, our bartenders ask themselves question, put that question mark. Our bartenders think to make a drink, or not.”
“If somebody leaves the bar, even if I’m not asked, I usually keep my eye on his or her drink. If customers do ask, we could put their drinks underneath the bar,” says Laird. “Also, it’s really easy to tell if someone is creep[ing] on a girl, or guy. So, in this case, we will try to start a conversation with that girl, and move her away from the guy.”
