Imagine your out on a Saturday night, it’s busy and you see a women who looks a mess, can’t stand up and slurring her speech so much nobody can understand her. When the security kicks her out you think it serves her right and she should learn when to stop drinking...Except she isn’t drunk, her drink’s been spiked and now she’s outside, alone and too drugged up to protect herself.

Graham Rhodes, Chief Executive of the anti-drink spiking foundation Roofie says that club doormen can’t tell the difference between a drunk and somebody who’s had their drink spiked.

Unfortunately, Gemma Walker, a 25 year old personal assistant from Blackburn experienced this first hand. She was out in on a Friday with friends, it was early and she had only had two drinks when suddenly she:" Couldn’t move and I couldn’t really tell what was going on around me and I keep trying to shout to my friends that something was wrong but my mouth was paralysed".

The bouncers picked Gemma up and threw her on the floor outside the pub. Gemma said her friends told the bouncers she wasn’t drunk but they ignored them. Luckily her friends took Gemma home, but she thinks the night could have ended much worse.

"The person who spike my drink could have found me or I could have choked on my own sick because I couldn’t control my body, was just lead on the floor."

If your drink has been spiked with a drug such as GHD it will be near impossible for the bouncers not to notice the difference between that and you being drunk.

Drink spiking can lead to rape, theft and assault. The cases of drug-rape has often been in the media. Victims of this can wake up somewhere they don’t know, with no memory of how they got there.

Roofie, which is the only group in Britain which specialise in drup rape has 800 - 1000 calls off people who think their drink has been spiked every year. According to Mr Rhodes it’s impossible to know how many people have their drinks spiked because people don’t report it.

If you think your drink has been spiked you need to get tested by the police as soon as possible, before the drugs leave your system. Although Mr Rhodes says that the tests aren’t quick enough: "Currently the waiting time is 8-12 weeks, which is not good enough as the drug disappears in a 4 week period."

Sharon Jackson Author of "Who’s Watching Your Drink?" says the combination of, victims reluctance to report the crime, the difficulty of testing for drugs and proving the victim was spiked, contribute to the low number of prosecutions for drug assisted rape.

So how can you avoid having your drink spiked? One solution is for bar owners and police to provide the devices in clubs. Free anti drinking devices are available to clubs from company Safe-flo, who brand the caps to make the money back off advertising.

There are various devices to stop drinks being spiked, such as Spikeys, plastic stoppers which fit into bottle necks leaving a small hole for a straw. Swizzlesticks which change colour if your drink has been spiked are also available. According to Roofie using anti-drinking devices has the double benefit of helping people remember to be drink aware. Police in Devon handed out 4, 000 free Spikeys to bars last year after two incidents of drink spiking were reported.

Roofie’s main advice is to be aware. Make sure that you and your friends look out for each other when you go out. Never accept a drink off somebody you don’t know and get help straight away if you feel ridiculously drunk when you know you haven’t drank a lot.

So prevention is really better than the cure where drink spiking is concerned. Because it's unlikely anybody, apart from you will know that's somethings wrong if you get your drink spiked. Don't risk getting dismissed as drunk and left by yourself when your completely vulnerable.

Robyn Walker

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