From Medical News Today :
Almost 62 percent of sexual assaults were found to be drug facilitated, and
almost 5 percent of the victims were given classic 'date-rape' drugs, according
to a new study at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
An estimated
100,000 sexual assaults are committed in the United States each year, and the
FBI says that number could be three times higher if all cases were reported,
said Adam Negrusz, associate professor of forensic sciences in the UIC College
of Pharmacy.
Negrusz, lead author of the study titled "Estimate of the
Incidence of Drug-Facilitated Sexual Assault in the U.S.," said individuals who
use drugs, with or without alcohol, are thought to be at a significantly higher
risk for sexual assault.
"In some cases the substances are taken
voluntarily by the victims, impairing their ability to make decisions," Negrusz
said. "In other cases the substances are given to the victims without their
knowledge, which may decrease their ability to identify a dangerous situation or
to resist the perpetrator."
In about 80 percent of the cases the victim
knows the assailant, he said, "while only 20 percent of sexual assaults are
opportunistic."
The study, funded by the National Institute of Justice,
can be accessed via the National Criminal Justice Reference Service at http://www.ncjrs.gov.
The
study collected data from 144 subjects who sought help in clinics located in
Texas, California, Minnesota and Washington state. The subjects were from all
ethnic backgrounds and ranged in age from 18 to 56, with a mean age of 26.6.
Each clinic was provided with sexual assault kits and asked to enroll
willing sexual assault complainants. Subjects provided two urine samples and a
hair specimen and completed a questionnaire that asked them to describe the
assault and any drugs they were using.
"The urine and hair specimens
were analyzed for about 45 drugs that have either been detected in sexual
assault victims or whose pharmacology could be exploited for drug-facilitated
sexual assaults," Negrusz said.
Two types of drug-facilitated sexual
assault were identified: presumed surreptitious drugging, or willful drug use by
the subject.
According to Negrusz, 61.8 percent of the subjects were
found to have at least one of the 45 analyzed drugs in their system; 4.9 percent
tested positive for the classic date-rape drugs, and 4.2 percent of the subjects
had been drugged without their knowledge.
Four of the
unwittingly-drugged victims, Negrusz said, tested positive for Rohypnol, a
tranquilizer 10 times more potent than Valium that has been banned in the United
States.
When the subject's voluntary drug use was queried, 35.4 percent
were likely to have been impaired at the time of the sexual assault.
"This study demonstrated the need for toxicological analysis in sexual
assault cases," Negrusz said, noting the high percentage of subjects who tested
positive for drugs. "It also demonstrated that sexual assault complainants
severely underreport their illegal drug usage. This could be corrected if the
administering nursing staff was better educated on taking a truthful drug
history."
The study also confirmed that drug-facilitated sexual assault
is more often due to the subject's own drug use, he said, rather than
surreptitious drugging by the perpetrator.
Robert Gaensslen, professor
and head of the UIC forensic science program, and Matthew Juhascik, who received
his doctoral degree in biopharmaceutical sciences from UIC, assisted with the
study.
UIC ranks among the nation's top 50 universities in federal
research funding and is Chicago's largest university with 25,000 students,
12,000 faculty and staff, 15 colleges and the state's major public medical
center. A hallmark of the campus is the Great Cities Commitment, through which
UIC faculty, students and staff engage with community, corporate, foundation and
government partners in hundreds of programs to improve the quality of life in
metropolitan areas around the world.
Sam
Hostettler
[email protected]
University of Illinois at Chicago
http://www.uic.edu 
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