Here are the steps you need to take if you are a victim of one of these date rape drugs:

Get Someplace Safe

If you know or suspect that you have been drugged and assaulted, the first thing you should do is get yourself to someplace safe. Depending on the circumstances under which the sexual assault took place, your assaulter may or may not still be present. Exercise caution and don’t put yourself in any further jeopardy if the assaulter is still nearby. As soon as you can, leave that location and seek help.

If you can’t get away, try to use your cell phone to call 911 for emergency response by police. Even if you don’t know the address where you’ve been taken, you can leave the cell phone on and police can track your signal and get to you. Use discretion, and try to remain calm.

If You Are Alone

Your sexual attacker may have left you alone, either at your place or car or somewhere else. It’s important that you do not pick up or clean anything. Evidence may be in the sheets, towels, linens or surroundings. This evidence may prove crucial in helping to track down the perpetrators.

If You Don’t Remember

Often a victim of a date rape drug will have no memory, or only fleeting memories, of what happened. You may not be aware an attack occurred until 8 to 12 hours afterward. You may feel like you have had sex without knowing that you did. Your clothes may be torn or dirty. You may wake up feeling drugged and hung over, even though you don’t remember having anything or very little to drink. You feel drunk, even though you know you didn’t have any alcohol. Or, you do remember having one drink, but nothing after that.

These are all signs that you may have been the victim of a sexual assault as a result of being slipped a date rape drug.

Do Not Shower or Change Clothes

Although you’ll probably feel dirty, ashamed and confused, and all you want to do is scrub yourself clean, it’s critical that you do not bathe, shower, douche or even change clothes. The evidence may be on and in your body, so you don’t want to destroy it.

Do Not Eat or Drink

It’s also important that you do not eat or drink anything. Don’t even brush your teeth or wash your hands.

If You Have to Urinate

After such an ordeal, you may feel the need to go to the bathroom to urinate. If this is absolutely necessary, collect a specimen. You can use a jar, wide-mouth bottle, even a zip-lock baggie or a paper cup you seal with Saran wrap. Take this urine sample with you to your private doctor, to a clinic or hospital emergency room. Rohypnol stays in the body for several hours, and can be detected in urine for up to 72 hours after being taken. GHB leaves the body within 12 hours.

Go To an Emergency Room, Clinic or Private Doctor

You need immediate treatment following sexual assault as a result of a date rape drug. This means you need to go to see your private doctor, to a clinic or hospital emergency room. Tell the doctor and nurses you believe you’ve been raped. They will use a “date rape kit” to collect evidence.

Ask the examining physician to check for any injuries – both externally (such as bruising, cuts, scrapes, vaginal and anal tears, bleeding, etc.), and internally. Also request the doctor test for pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections. A urine test and blood work is also critical so that the presence of the sedating substances can be detected. If you’ve already collected a urine sample, present this to the doctor.

Contact the Police

If this happened to you, the perpetrators are likely to do it again to someone else. You need to report the assault to the police. Even if the details are fuzzy to you, and they probably are due to the effects of the date rape drugs, you absolutely owe it to yourself and to others to try to have the assaulters apprehended and face the consequences.

Seek Support and Advice from a Rape Crisis Center

Recognize that this is a physically and emotionally traumatic experience that you have undergone. You won’t be able to just shrug it off – even if you think you can. You may be very strong emotionally and suddenly the whole episode will come back and haunt you, causing you sleeplessness, bouts of depression, uncontrollable weeping, and inability to work, go to school, and continue your relationships. You need the support of professionals who can help you through the difficult days of shame, guilt, fear and shock ahead. You need the help of caring individuals, many of whom have experienced rape themselves, to help you heal.

One source is toll-free and available 24/7. Call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE. The Hotline is free, the information you provide is confidential, and your privacy is secure. It is from the Rape Abuse and Incest National Network. More than 1,000 trained professionals are available to help you from RAINN-affiliated crisis centers located all across the country. You can also find helpful information on their website at www.rainn.org.

It’s Not Your Fault

The key point to remember in all of this is that you are a victim. It is not your fault that you were sexually assaulted and raped after someone slipped you a date rape drug. But you can heal. And you can get beyond this terrible ordeal.

Victim of a Date Rape Drug? What To Do is a post from: Drug Addiction Treatment

Today, GHB is one of the four so-called “date rape” drugs:  MDMA (ecstasy), ketamine, Rohypnol, and GHB. Concern over their use to commit sexual assaults, Congress passed the “Drug-Induced Rape Prevention and Punishment Act of 1996,” which stiffened penalties for the use of any controlled substance to aid in sexual assault.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) states that drug rape is one of the fastest-growing crimes in America today. Some 85 percent of the drug-related rapes (men and women) are committed by someone the victim knows.

According to the Drug Abuse Warning Network, persons between the ages of 18 to 25 account for 58 percent of GHB mentions in emergency room visits for drug-related causes.

What it is

Gamma hydroxybutyrate, or GHB, is a synthetically produced central nervous system depressant. It was used initially by body builders to stimulate and promote muscle growth. Today, GHB is popular among teens and young adults in the club and rave scene. Known as a “designer” drug, GHB is synthesized from a chemical used to clean electrical circuit boards.

Common street names

On the street, they call GHB by various names: cap (cap full), caps, cherry meth, easy lay, everclear, fantasy, G, Georgia Home Boy, G-riffic, Gamma Oh, GBH, great hormones at bedtime, goop, Grievous Bodily Harm, liquid E, liquid ecstasy, liquid G, liquid X, organic Quaalude, salty water, scoop, sleep, sleep-500, soap, Somatomax, Vita-G, and water.

How to identify GHB

There are three forms of GHB: liquid, white powder and capsule. In its liquid form, it is virtually colorless and odorless, possessing a salty or soapy taste. When mixed with other liquids, as in a beverage, it is virtually undetectable.

How GHB is used

Doses of the powder form of GHB are fairly straightforward. The drug is usually sold on the street in liquid form by the dose, which can range from a few drops to a full glass in a variety of concentrations. GHB is often put in water guns, and is sold to users by the squirt. Another method of use is candy dipped in GHB.

GHB is often combined with alcohol and/or other drugs such as MDMA (ecstasy).

Effects of GHB

In lower or mild doses, GHB can alleviate anxiety and give users a sense of relaxation – which may be why the majority of users, teens and young adults, find it so popular. As dosage increases, however, the sedative effects can put a person to sleep. Since the drug is manufactured in clandestine laboratories, its purity is always in question: you never know what you’re really getting.

Why GHB is bad for you

Due to its varying strength and purity, GHB affects people differently every time they take it. This wildly unpredictable nature of the drug and its effect on the user may be another reason for its popularity. But the results can be tragic. Some of the dangers include:

• Accidents (due to the drug’s sedative effect, particularly dangerous while driving)

• Coma

• Death

• Loss of consciousness

• Overdose (nausea, slowed heart rate, decreased level of consciousness)

• Respiratory arrest

• Seizures

• Vomiting

Addicting?

Highly addictive with sustained use, GHB is extremely dangerous, especially when combined with alcohol and other drugs. GHB can cause severe dependence anywhere from two months to three years after discontinuing use, according to one study. Withdrawal effects range from mild to severe, depending on length of usage. Some of the symptoms of withdrawal include:

• Delirium

• Hallucinations

• Hypertension

• Increased heart rate

• Nausea

• Profuse sweating

• Psychosis and severe agitation, requiring protective restraints

• Tremors

• Vomiting

GHB is a Schedule I drug, under the Controlled Substances Act. It has been banned in the U.S. since 1990. Possession, distribution or manufacture of GHB can result in a lengthy prison term — up to 20 years.

GHB: Facts about this Date-Rape Drug is a post from: Drug Addiction Treatment

Other common names for the plant include Thorn Apple, Pricklyburr, Jimson Weed, Moonflower, Devil’s Cucumber, and Devil’s Trumpet. In the classic novel “The Scarlet Letter,” Nathaniel Hawthorne referred to one type of the plant as “Apple-Peru.” Datura is one of the “witches’ weeds” along with deadly nightshade, henbane, and mandrake, and was often an essential ingredient of love potions and witches’ brews.

All Datura plants contain tropane alkaloids in their seeds and flowers, which have hallucinogenic properties. Each plant’s toxicity depends on its ago, where it is growing, and local weather conditions, making it especially hazardous to people who use it as a drug. In many cultures, the plant has been used as a poison and hallucinogen. In traditional cultures, users were required to have a great deal of experience and a detailed knowledge of the plant so it could be used safely. In some parts of Europe and India, Datura has been used in suicides and murders.

People who use Datura as a drug usually boil the seeds and flowers into tea and drink the mixture. The effects can include frank delirium (a complete inability to differentiate reality from fantasy), hyperthermia, tachycardia, bizarre and possibly violent behavior, severely dilated pupils and excessive sensitivity to light that can last for several days, and pronounced amnesia.

Many unfortunate incidents have resulted from recreational users ingesting Datura. There are several reports in medical literature of deaths from Datura intoxication, and in the 1990s and early 2000s, the US media reported many adolescents and young adults dying or becoming seriously ill from intentionally ingesting Datura. Children are especially vulnerable to the effects and are more likely to have a fatal experience.

The drug information site Erowid.org notes that “the overwhelming majority of those who describe to use their uise of Datura…find their experiences extremely mentally and physically unpleasant and not infrequently physically dangerous.”

The Dangers of Datura is a post from: Drug Addiction Treatment

Another prescription drug, dextromethorphan (called “DXM,” or “robo” on the street), available as a cough suppressant, can produce similar dissociative effects as both PCP and ketamine when taken in high doses.

What happens to cause the effects?

Distribution of the neurotransmitter glutamate throughout the brain is altered by dissociative drugs. Why is glutamate important? Glutamate is involved in memory, in response to the environment, and in pain perception.

PCP is most commonly referred to as a dissociative drug, although the effects and actions of PCP also apply to ketamine and dextromethorphan.

Why do people abuse dissociative drugs?

Dissociative drugs, PCP in particular, produce an almost instant trance-like feeling and users experience a rush of euphoria, a sense of pleasure and detachment from reality. PCP alters dopamine in the brain, resulting in the predictable euphoria and rush that users and abusers of dissociative drugs crave. The effects of PCP can last for hours, and some users report the feelings last for days.

Effects of PCP

PCP looks like a fine white powder, although it is sometimes dyed different colors. Users smoke it, often mixed with other chemicals and sprinkled on tobacco and marijuana, although herbs such as parsley and oregano are also used. PCP can also be dissolved into liquid.

At low doses of 5 milligrams (mg) or less, according to the NIDA, PCP causes physical effects such as rapid and shallow breathing, elevated body temperature, and increased heart rate and blood pressure. At higher doses of 10 mg or more, users experience progressively more severe effects, including dangerous blood pressure increase, and changes in heart rate and respiration, many times accompanied by nausea, decreased sense of pain, dizziness and blurred vision. Muscle contractions, often violent, can result in bone fractures and damage to kidneys as the breakdown of muscle cells occurs. When doses reach extremely high levels, PCP users can experience convulsions, coma, hyperthermia and death.

Another danger of PCP is its unpredictability. In some users, the effects, which can be almost immediate, can linger for days. Distortions of time, space and body image are common in some users. Other PCP users experience panic, fear and loss of control. Some report feelings of invulnerability, have an exaggerated sense of strength, while others may fall into a state of extreme depression, have thoughts of or try to commit suicide, become violent or disoriented.

PCP can result in addiction when used repeatedly. Recent research, according to the NIDA, shows that prolonged or repeated PCP use can result in withdrawal syndrome upon abrupt cessation of the drug. Symptoms such as depression and memory loss can last for a year after PCP is no longer taken.

Effects of ketamine

Ketamine is used in veterinary medicine and in anesthesia on humans. On the street, the injectable liquid is usually evaporated, forming a powder that is either compressed into pills or snorted. Some users inject the liquid form of the drug directly into their muscle tissue.

Much less potent than PCP, ketamine’s chemical structure, how it acts, and effects on the human body are similar. Commonly reported ketamine user sensations include a floating feeling, as well as being detached from their bodies. Feelings of detachment can be extreme, however, with some users reporting they had a “near-death experience.” This is sometimes referred to as the “K-hole,” and is similar to a bad LSD trip.

Because of its colorless and odorless properties, ketamine can be easily dropped into an unsuspecting individual’s drink. Cases of sexual assault (“drug rape”) have occurred as a result. Ketamine is one of the troubling drug rape drugs popular on the rave and dance club scene, along with GHB and Rohypnol.

Effects of dextromethorphan

Dextromethorphan is an ingredient in cough and cold medicines that are sold over-the-counter. The most commonly abused form of this medicine is the extra-strength cough syrup that contains about 3 mg of dextromethorphan per milliliter (ml) of syrup. When used at the proper dosage levels (1/6 to 1/3 of an ounce) in the treatment of coughs and colds, dextromethorphan is considered safe and effective, according to the NIDA. When doses reach 4 ounces and greater, the drug begins to produce dissociative effects that are similar to those of PCP and ketamine.

Powdered varieties, made by extracting the dextromethorphan from cough syrup, are available on the street. Users snort or take the powdered version orally.

How dextromethorphan affects each individual depends on dosage, as well as habituation, tolerance, body weight and other factors – much like how any medication affects different people in different ways. With dextromethorphan, users report several plateaus of experience, and the effects last for 6 hours. As it is dose-dependant, at levels of about 2 ounces of the drug, users say that they experience distorted visual perceptions and mild stimulant effect. Levels of 10 ounces, however, produce user-reported effects of a complete dissociation from the body.

The NIDA cautions that dextromethorphan also often contains antihistamine and decongestant ingredients. These drug mixtures, when taken in high doses, increase the risk of abuse.

What Are Dissociative Drugs is a post from: Drug Addiction Treatment