DATE-RAPE DRUGS INSPIRE A 'CRUSADE'

You do the drugs, I'll take the sex.

That's what Ellen Bloom tells Terrence P. Farley when they do their
two-person seminar on the dangers of sexual assault using date-rape drugs.
It's a light reference in discussions about a dark and sinister topic.

Their campaign once again brought them together this summer when they
testified before the state Assembly Advisory Council on Women.

"It is our crusade," Bloom said. "I take him with me."

Farley and Bloom want legislators to help educate the public and potential
victims to prevent such rapes, and to develop effective procedures for
investigation and prosecution when the use of rape drugs is suspected.

Bloom, a rape crisis counselor at the Women's Center of Monmouth County,
and Farley, first assistant Ocean County prosecutor and commander of the
county's Narcotics Strike Force, say sexual assaults with drugs are
particularly heinous because the substances alter the memories of the
victims, making arrests and prosecutions difficult.

The date-rape drug of choice these days seems to be GHB, or gamma
hydroxybutyrate, and although some use of the drug is voluntary, it is used
more frequently to facilitate sexual assault, Farley said.

"Either someone takes it voluntarily or people ply other people with it
through alcohol," said Farley, referring to surreptitious dosing known as
"scooping." "Either way, they become incapacitated and can't make an
intelligent decision."

Assemblywoman Marion Crecco, R-Essex, vice chairwoman of the advisory
council, said she is concerned about the proliferation of party drugs.

"There are several drugs that are out there, not just the one you hear so
much about," she said, referring to Ecstasy. "This topic encompasses so
much. We can put laws in place against it, but no one is looking at the
reasons why, the causes why this is going on in society."

Victims can't fight back

GHB, known on the street as Gamma 10, Georgia Homeboy, G-Riffick, Easy Lay,
Liquid E, Liquid X, Salty Water, Vita-G, Goop, Gamma-oh, or Grievous Bodily
Harm, is a central nervous system depressant that is cheap, easy to share
and easy to hide, Farley said.

At low doses, people become giddy and euphoric and may experience increased
libido. That is followed by suggestibility and passivity that makes it easy
for rapists to gain control over their victims.

At higher doses, the victim can't move, can't talk, can't fight back. She
can't remember anything later.

"I teach (police) to investigate this crime as if it was a homicide, as if
the body could not speak to them about the events of the night," Bloom said.

And after the victim regains consciousness, if she doesn't seek help
immediately, any evidence of the drug is gone, authorities say.

In fact, GHB is detectable in the blood for only up to eight hours and in
urine for 12, and investigators say rapists who give the drugs to their
victims know this.

"There are women being tortured," Bloom said. "They are waking up bloody
and battered, and they don't even know what happened to them."

Bloom and Farley are asking legislators to better fund investigators who
want to perform urine testing, which is expensive, and to increase
penalties for sexual assaults using drugs.

Bloom points to the case of a Manchester man sentenced in December to six
years in prison for using a date-rape drug to overpower and sexually
assault a woman in Jackson. It was the first case in the state to be
successfully prosecuted as a sexual assault facilitated by the use of
drugs, she said.

Wesley G. LaBoy, 20, is serving the term in state prison after examiners at
the state prison for sex offenders in Woodbridge concluded he is not likely
to repeat the crime.

"This has been a catastrophic event in my life," said the victim, gasping
for air between sobs during LaBoy's sentencing. "I can't sleep. I live in a
cage now. I'm not able to go out or be alone. I can't afford to trust
anyone. He took away so much."

The assault happened Sept. 27, 1998, in Jackson.

"We got lucky in that case because the skilled investigator was able to get
a confession," Bloom said of Jackson Detective Mitch Cowitt. "I was happy
with the confession and delighted with the conviction. As far as the
sentenc-ing, I was not happy with the length of time."

Assistant Ocean County Prosecutor Joseph F. Mackolin prosecuted LaBoy as
well as Timothy T. Vanderberg, in what Mackolin said was proven to be an
alcohol-related case of sexual abuse.

"All of these are very traumatic," Mackolin said. "The victims in both
these cases were bright young women victimized by these men. The number one
thing I impart upon these victims is no way are they at fault. They are as
faultless as a child when they've been drugged or consuming alcohol to the
point where they can no longer be rational, reasonable or able to
con-template their actions.

"The victims were unable to say no, so these men took advantage of that,"
he said.

Dr. Andrew King is a gynecologist at Community Medical Center who is
working with the Ocean County pros-ecutor's office to develop a program in
which emergency room nurses would assist rape victims. He said he has been
trying to develop a way to track the number of sex-assault vic-tims in
Ocean County emergency rooms who have been slipped a date-rape drug.

"If a kid comes into an ER or reports a rape, can we get a GHB test at
will?" he asked. "Would the patients allow a drug screen so we can see if
we can detect a pattern? They really have to focus attention on the
date-rape thing, because once they start screening for (GHB), I think they
are going to find a lot of it."

If a victim knows she was drugged, it could help her emotional recovery,
King said.

"They would get over the concept that 'it was my fault,' " King said. "You
were basically anesthetized, and it's not your fault."

Education, precautions

Although the state's sexual assault statute allows for the crime to be
elevated to first degree (the most serious type of crime) if the victim is
physically helpless or incapacitated, Bloom said recent changes in drug
laws acknowledge that the date-rape drugs are being used against women.

"It's a special statute because it ac-knowledges these drugs are
consid-ered weapons," she said. "What we need now is for judges and
prosecu-tors to be aware they can use this."

Bloom said those who rape with drugs need to spend a long time behind bars.

"The rapist took away control of her body and her mind," Bloom said. "It is
a total and complete loss of control. We have to work really hard at
re-em-powering the woman."

Bloom wants the state Department of Education to revise its curriculum to
allow education about the dangers of drug-facilitated sexual assault to be
taught in high school.

She also wants more community edu-cation to target the at-risk population,
which she described as females ages 12 to 24.

"They are not getting it in high school -- what drug-facilitated sexual
assault is and how to reduce their risk," she said. "It is not in the
curriculum in the state of New Jersey."

The rape care hot line -- (888) 264-RAPE -- is getting between 25 and 50
calls each month about assaults using a date-rape drug, a steady increase
over the last six months, she said.

"Because we are Shore communities, our population doubles and it does get
worse (in the summer)," Bloom said. "People on vacation, wanting to have a
good time, bring their drugs with them. They know these drugs are drugs to
help commit the perfect crime; they can use them and then they leave again."

The concerns over date-rape drugs have grown so pronounced that even club
bouncers will not drink water served at the clubs, said Laurence
DesRochers, an emergency room phy-sician at Community Medical Center in
Toms River, which during the Me-morial Day weekend in 1999 treated more
than 30 club drug overdoses.

"I understand they don't even take anything from the bar," said
DesRoch-ers, who has testified before Congress on the dangers of club
drugs. "They bring their own bottled water. They keep it with them at all
times to know they are not getting slipped anything."

DesRochers says he has seen young women who most likely were slipped GHB,
but was unable to perform the test that would have confirmed it. "The
potential for rape is there, and that is a big concern," he said. "The
clubs get so busy sometimes, it is easy to get separated from their
friends, they got lost in the crowd and, suddenly, they are out the door."

The doctor recalled one case in which a woman was dropped off at the door
of the ER.

"She was completely unconscious and under the influence of GHB,"
Des-Rochers said. "When she woke up, she was really frightened. . . . She
didn't know where she was. She said, 'I vaguely recall going down the Shore
with my friends, but that is it.'

"She really didn't have any idea what happened. That's what the problem is.
They are not going to be able to tell us in any way what happened."

At about $5 to $20 per ounce, GHB is odorless and colorless and can be
mixed into alcoholic or nonalcoholic drinks without detection. Peak
con-centration in the bloodstream occurs 20 to 60 minutes after ingestion,
causing dizziness, nausea, vomiting, weakness, seizures and, in extreme
cases, coma, authorities said.

"If you start to feel strange, get help immediately," Bloom said. "You only
have 10 minutes."

Because of the slightly salty taste, authorities say GHB is typically
hid-den in drinks such as margaritas, Long Island iced teas, sweet
liqueurs, tart fruit juices and sodas. When it is dropped into bottled
water, it will turn the liquid cloudy if shaken, which is about the most
reliable field test for GHB, authorities say.

"There are a lot of gang rapes start-ing," Bloom said. "Women are coming in
having no memory or only a slight memory of multiple men assaulting them."

Forget the designated driver, Farley said. What women need these days is a
designated watcher; that is, some-one who isn't drinking and who can't be
distracted, who monitors the sta-tus of a friend's drink and makes sure it
hasn't been doctored.

"I can't tell you how many women have told me 'were it not for the fact I
had someone watching, something terrible would have happened to me,' "
Farley said.

"It's calculated," Bloom said of the decision to use GHB before a sex
assault. Sexual abusers have discov-ered the amnesiac effect GHB cre-ates,
she said.

"Those who have never stepped over the line, now step over the line," she
said. "It is the perfect crime, if their victim doesn't have a memory."

Nationally, GHB and Rohypnol (a sed-ative and muscle relaxant) had been the
popular choice for date-rapists, but for some reason, Rohypnol no longer
seems to be a threat at the Shore or in New Jersey generally, Farley said.

"Fortunately, Rohypnol had a rather short-lived popularity in this area,"
Farley said during his testimony be-fore the Assembly advisory council. In
fact, during 1998 and 1999, no Ro-hypnol was seized by any municipal police
department in Ocean County or by the county Narcotics Strike Force.

"It is off the screen totally because it's been replaced by so many
things," Farley said in an interview. Those include Ecstasy, Ketamine
(ketamine hydrochloride, an animal tranquilizer better known as Special K)
and "the old standby," LSD, Farley said.

On Feb. 18, President Clinton signed the Hillory J. Farias and Samantha
Reid Date-Rape Drug Prohibition Act, named for two girls who died after GHB
was slipped into their soft drinks.

That law, aside from increasing the penalties for distributing the drug,
requires federal officials to develop procedures for collecting toxicology
specimens and for taking victims' statements in investigations and
pros-ecutions of sexual assaults with the use of drugs.

"It is heinous, absolutely heinous," Bloom said of the rapes that are being
assisted by drugs. "I hate to be the bearer of bad news. But without
com-munity education, nothing is going to get done and we're going to have
more victims."