VICTIMS' STORIES DRIVE HOME THE DANGER

The 40-year-old woman is savvy and smart -- the last person to be
slipped a date-rape drug in a downtown Victoria bar, she thought.

But her few memories of a date 18 months ago are painful and
embarrassing.

Trying to smoke her lip gloss. Throwing herself at her barely known
date and kissing him. Having her wallet stolen and then passing out at
home.

"It is certainly not usually my style," said Susan, who is reluctant
to have her real name used. "For at least an hour I don't remember
what I did. That's awful -- just horrible."

As far as Susan knows, she was not sexually assaulted, but she never
got her wallet back and, because it contained her address and personal
information, she spent months living in fear.

Susan hopes her case will illustrate the dangers lurking in bars and
clubs and the need to keep drinks in sight or to have a girlfriend
watching out for you.

"Thank God my teenage daughters are being educated about this in
school," she said.

Susan had several glasses of wine with the man she had met
online.

She left her glass on the table to go to the washroom and then to
dance, so she is not sure when something was added to her drink. "Then
everything started getting blurry," said Susan, who believes GHB was
slipped into her glass.

Someone put her in a cab, which took her home, and her horrified
daughters, believing she was drunk, let her sleep it off.

The next morning, after realizing her wallet was missing, she phoned
the man she was with, who professed to know nothing about it.

Susan did not press charges.

For another B.C. family, the memory of what can happen with drugs or
alcohol will never fade.

The stepfather of a 16-year-old girl said his daughter and her friend
were sexually assaulted, then thrown out of the vehicle with the used
condoms thrown down beside them. A court acquitted the two juveniles
charged with the offences.

"She was a virgin," the girl's stepfather said.

"They did a rape kit on her and the Crown proved it was one of the
accused, but she was in such a state, she couldn't remember anything
and so they couldn't prove there wasn't consent," he said.

The girl, who was not used to drinking, made a bad decision when she
and a friend decided to meet two young men they had encountered
on-line, he concedes.

But when she was found, the amount of alcohol in her system was
disabling. It is unlikely she would deliberately drink that much, her
stepfather said.

"She was completely incoherent."

The law should be changed to give more protection to young people, who
cannot give consent if they are drunk or drugged, said the man, who
has written to numerous politicians.

The Criminal Code says consent cannot be deemed to have been given if
the complainant is incapable of consenting, but that leaves a lot of
leeway, said Sally Gose of the Victoria Women's Sexual Assault Centre.

The assault and stress of the court case have devastated the family,
but gradually, the 16-year-old is getting better, her stepfather said.

"She can't go back to school," he said. "But she's studying at home
and her goal is still to graduate. She's a determined young lady and
she grew up fast."