drug facilitated sexual assault

DRUG FACILITATED SEXUAL ASSAULT AND EFFECTS

Drug facilitated sexual assault is one of the most difficult crime to unveil. This is do to the effects that drugs have on the victim and to the possibility drugs give to perpetrator to stay hidden. DFSA refer to all drugs that strip the victim’s ability to consciously give consent to a sexual act. They are administered with the goal to commit a sexual act upon a victim that cannot say no.

The most common drugs used to commit sexual assault are GHB (gamma-Hydroxybutyric acid) and GBL (gamma-Butyrolactone acid).

These drugs are also known with different street name. What do DFSA look like? They can be small and round pills, liquid or powder. The worst characteristic is that drugs usually have no flavor, no color, nor smell.

The drugs start to induce their effect extremely quickly, so quick that often the victim does not realize what is happening and cannot ask for help.

At the beginning the victim will experience symptoms like drowsiness, fatigue, increase sweating, light-headedness, dizziness, heart rate decrease, muscle relaxation, nausea, problems seeing, the need of “fresh air”. This the most delicate phase because the need of the victim to look for “fresh air” make her/him an easy prey for the offender (who may take the chance to escort the victim in a more isolated place), and at the same time the “fresh air” maximizes the drugs effect. In fact the oxygen accelerates the absorption of the drug ultimately causing the depression of Central Nervous System. Now the victim cannot give consent anymore even if S/he not passed out.

At the end the victim will experience: extreme sleepiness, drunk like behavior, dry mouth, tremors, dream-like feeling, memory loss, cameo memory, anterograde amnesia.

The drug impede the victim’s brain to register what happen during the assault, so the victim is left with no information about what happen and who the offender is. Often victims do not even realize that they have been abused for a long time.

DFSA INDUCED SUICIDE

Perpetrators that administer the drug once tend to do it again, often to the same victim. Victims that have been administered multiple times (2 or more) show distinct symptoms that occur after the symptoms above mentioned. In fact, studies conducted by École Universitaire Internationale have discovered how victims of GHB/GBL multiple administrations suffer from skeletal and muscular pains located in specific areas of the body and that are connected to those multiple administrations. However, the symptoms are not over yet. The studies have proven how multiple GHB/GBL administration induced chemical and hormonal alterations within the victims’ body that lead them to suicidal thought, and ultimately to commit suicide, even months after the last administration. It has been estimated that the percentage of victims of GHB/GBL multiple administrations that attempt suicide is around 90%.

Given that the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (2011) stated that DFSA is the most widespread drug in the world, the number of unwitting victims (École Universitaire Internationale, 2016), even if still unknown, could be alarmingly high.

The Tooth Memory

Looking for new methods to detect GHB/GBL within the victim body it has been found that the tooth has memory, so called tooth memory©, where substances can be detected for a long period of time.