I am a bit surprised the poll did not ask students if they had ever had a drink spiked with the date-rape drug, Rohypnol (also known as flunitrazepam). If you are interested in facts, a study in the UK examined 120 claimed cases of use of "date-rape" drugs: not a single instance survived scrutiny. The San Diego Medical Examiner's office also looked into the issue-- again, using real science-- and found some evidence of possible flunitrazepam in about 1% of the alleged incidents. (Keep in mind that Rohypnol is sometimes-- often-- used intentionally, recreationally by people.)
Obviously, the investigators never watched Oprah or 20/20, or any of the other numerous programs on their mission of frightening the uninformed.
The University of Illinois, incidentally, casually asserts that date rape drugs are being used "at an increasing rate". Really? And how do they know this? What previous studies are they comparing current studies to? What was the rate ten years ago, or fifteen years ago? They further assert that it is "often" brought back from Europe (where it can be prescribed as a sleep aid) by students.
I think I know where they got these conclusions from. They asked people their impressions. Do you think the use of date-rape drugs is going up or down? What do you think? Give us your honest opinion.
Do a search on the question of "does Rohypnol leave any traces" and you will find that a lot of websites use exactly the same text to say it does not. Look for the phrase:
is colorless, odorless, and tasteless and dissolves without leaving any traces.
That means they are all going to the same source, which may or may not be truthful.
It is not truthful. First of all, since about 10 years ago, the manufacturer, Roche, has made the tablets "less dispersible". It doesn't dissolve cleanly quickly, and colors the liquid in which it is mixed.
More importantly, Rohypnol can be detected in the urine of a person who ingested it for up to 60 hours afterwards. In the situation in which a woman suspects she has been secretly drugged and raped, she has at least two days to report it and have her urine tested for the unlikely possibility she really has been drugged.
But then, Rohypnol is supposed to cause amnesia: the victim is supposed to lose her memory of the assault, and even time before the assault. Then how would she know? That's problematic, especially since alcohol has a similar effect. And that's why when you do see cases of suspicion of the date-rape drug, victims report that they were bruised or sore in the groin area, and that's what made them suspicious. They understand the problem: how did they know?
Even more problematic: many of the alleged symptoms of the drug are very, very similar to symptoms of excessive alcohol consumption. Would there be a temptation for a woman in this situation to under-state the amount of alcohol she has consumed? Have you ever understated the amount of alcohol you have consumed?
The disturbing part of this-- something which should be very disturbing to women who are genuinely concerned about sexual assault-- is the number of women who have claimed to have been drugged and then raped. A charge of rape can often boil down to he said/she said arguments, and feminists urge us to always believe the woman, but if a woman is tested within 60 hours, it is possible to prove, scientifically, whether or not she was drugged. But if it can be proven that most of the claims of having been drugged and raped are false-- at least, insofar as the drug part goes-- a rational person might consider whether there's something going on here that needs to be acknowledged by the legal system, by society, and by feminists.
Dr. Foubert said he considered many of those responses a form of “excusing the perpetrator and blaming the victim,” and was very concerned about it. NY Times, 2014-10-28
I could not imagine a more emblematic example of how duplictous this issue has become than the quote above: Dr. Foubert, responding to details in the MIT study that show that "large numbers" of undergraduates agreed with statements suggesting that the blame for sexual assault "did not always rest exclusively with the aggressor", says, oh, we can ignore that data. Just pay attention to the results I like.
The results seem to imply that this university campus is just rife with monstrous men committing sexual assault everywhere with near impunity (only 5% of the victims ever report it.
Let's start with the fact that only 35% of the student body completed the questionaire. We don't need to assume that a higher majority of victims than non-victims might be willing to take the time to complete the questionaire, skewering the results, because it is obvious that that possibility exists. Dr. Foubert trusts this minority when they assert that they have been victims of unwanted sexual conduct, and then heaps contempt on the same minority when "two-thirds agreed that 'rape and sexual assault can happen unintentionally, especailly if alcohol is involved'".
This is called "cherry-picking" your data. You take the results that support your ideological commitment, attribute fabulous reliability to this data, and then ignore the same "reliable" results that don't.
Foubert is "concerned" about the fact that many of the supposed victims feel they might be co-responsible for the sexual activity that took place. As, perhaps, in "I guess I shouldn't have gone to the bedroom with him while I was drunk and my friends were urging me not to". No no-- women must not even be permitted to think that that would be unwise.
In other words, we need to train these women to see things the way we want them to see them, instead of how they actually see them, without having been programmed.
Foubert wants everyone to report every unwanted sexual advance to the campus police and the authorities. He asks the students who did not report these assaults, why they didn't: "more than half" didn't think it was serious enough. Perhaps some did not think it worth the trouble (heresy!). Some, possibly, didn't want to ruin somebody's life over an incident they feel they can handle.
A few years ago, two children were killed in a car accident on the 401 highway. The driver of a transport truck was clearly at fault. Yet the parents of the children refused to demand "justice", or severe punishment. They felt that the driver would benefit more from their compassion and forgiveness than from a stern prison sentence. Dr. Foubert would undoubtedly feel a need to insist that these parents demand a pound of flesh. He would be "concerned" that they don't understand what needs to be done in that situation. He would argue that other parents of children killed in at-fault accidents have been undermined.
Perhaps some of the girls filling out his survey just don't believe there is a lot to be gained by getting back at someone. Is it really all that satisfying? Yes, yes, we will conduct the charade of "trying to make sure it doesn't happen to anyone else", and we know the necessity of that cover, because otherwise, you know, it looks like revenge.
Oh my, no, -- that cannot be permitted. Dr. Foubert will undoubtedly embark on a vigourous program of re-education to correct this deficiency. Everything is serious. Everything is assault, if you don't have an explicit "affirmative consent" (which is "consent consent", and will shortly be replaced with something like "affirmative positive consent", or "consent consent consent", until the authorities realize that even more gravity is required.