'Rape cocktail' warning issued
November 25 2006 at 12:43PM
By Christina Gallagher
Partying young women may be as much at risk from drinking alcohol and caffeinated energy drink cocktails as they are from "date rape" drugs. Women across the country are claiming they have consumed caffeinated energy drinks mixed with alcohol and are finding themselves in strangers' beds - and they don't remember how they got there. Dr Graham Hutton, director of trauma units in four provincial hospitals in Gauteng, said he has noticed an increase in the number of women coming to the hospitals who are waking up disoriented after consuming as many as seven energy-drink cocktails.
'Nightspots across the country are making millions of rands off these cocktails' (The energy drinks he referred to are of the caffeinated type, not the "isotonic" fluid replacement drinks like Energade and Powerade.)
"It has taken a long time to notice the pattern, but women and some men are coming in every week saying they woke up in a guy's bed and didn't remember how they got there. But when we ran drug tests, there were no traces of Rohypnol [the most common date rape drug]. "Hutton said the mixture of caffeinated energy drinks with vodka or Jugermeister were overstimulating to the body. He added that an estimated 20 percent of people who consume this mixture would, in his opinion, act aggressively, flirtatiously or out of character."With these [date rape] drugs the person becomes unconscious, while with the energy drinks and alcohol mixture the person is fully conscious, but [depending on how much they consume] they might not remember," he said.
In the past two years there had not been one single positive testing for Rohypnol at Sunninghill, Garden City Clinic, Milpark Hospital or Union Hospital, said Hutton. He added: "Labs can test for GHB and ketamine (other common date-rape drugs) but these tests are unreliable and are not legally and medically admissible." However, from the beginning of the new year, a more reliable test for tracing these drugs would be available. Hutton's theory that energy drinks mixed with alcohol are leading to more date-rape occurrences is controversial and untested and, if correct, has major implications because nightspots across the country are making millions of rands off these cocktails, which can cost as much as R40.
Last week, a patient who thought she had been raped came to Hutton. She said she had been drinking a caffeinated energy drink and alcohol with her friends at a bar in Montecasino."She said a guy approached her and told her that her friends had left and that he would take her home. There is video footage of them in the bar and then of them outside on a bench kissing, before they left." But the young woman did not remember any of this. Hutton said that in many cases he had been informed that security footage obtained from various venues appeared to show that women were "conscious but were acting out of character". "Ladies are shown walking out of bars holding hands with someone, but leave their handbags behind. The next day… they don't remember a thing." Dr Adrienne Wolfsohn, Gauteng's director of emergency medical services, said: "People don't realise that the combination of energy drinks and vodka might affect their neurological system more than vodka and soda."
She said the combination was dangerous because, drunk in substantial quantities, it makes you high and so intoxicated that you do not remember. Superintendent Andre Neethling, Gauteng provincial co-ordinator of the Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences Unit, confirmed that if the Sexual Offences Bill had been passed, it would be legally accepted that someone had been raped if that person was so drunk that she or he was not capable of giving consent to sex. Responding to questions from the Saturday Star, Christina Sponer, a spokesperson for Red Bull, said it was safe to mix the popular energy drink with alcohol - but that people should not underestimate the effects of alcohol. "Everyone knows that the excessive and irresponsible consumption of alcohol can have adverse effects on human health and behaviour, but it should be clear that this is due to the alcoholic drink, not the mixer - be it cola, orange juice, tonic or whatever else is mixed with alcohol."
Hutton pointed out he did not think that people were necessarily giving others the energy-drink cocktail with the intention of raping them later. "A lot of innocence is involved, and it is ending up in a bad situation for both parties."
This article was originally published on page 1 of The Star on November 25, 2006
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