ADS SPREAD DATE-RAPE DRUG WARNING

San Diego County Urges Women On Spring Break To Be Careful

SAN DIEGO--With spring break quickly approaching, officials are
launching an aggressive campaign to warn young women about the
proliferation of date-rape drugs on the local party scene.

"Rapists are no longer just using guns and knives," said county
Supervisor Pam Slater. "They're now using stealth weapons, and those
stealth weapons are drugs."

With its beaches, sunny weather and swinging nightspots, San Diego is
a mecca for tens of thousands of college students during spring break
and summer vacation.

Each year police receive reports from women who say they have been
sexually abused after a night of partying.

Of all categories of violent crime, only rape is increasing in San
Diego County. The number of rapes has gone up 7% since 1995 while
violent crime overall has plunged more than 20%, according to annual
crime statistics.

Officials are concerned that women in San Diego are more vulnerable to
date-rape drugs than women in other parts of the country because such
illicit drugs are easily and cheaply available in nearby Mexico. Even
though it is illegal to bring such substances into this country,
smuggling flourishes.

Often odorless and tasteless, date-rape drugs are powerful
tranquilizers that can be dropped into the drinks of unsuspecting
women, rendering them incapable of resisting.

If the woman has been drinking, the drug can be even more powerful,
resulting in blackouts and lack of memory of the assault.

With the victim unable to remember what happened, prosecutors
frequently don't file charges in date-rape cases. Also, date-rape
drugs flush from the system rapidly and cannot be detected by
toxicology tests.

The $100,000 prevention effort, sponsored by the county Board of
Supervisors and the district attorney's office, will include
billboards, bumper stickers, television and radio advertising, posters
and brochures at local campuses and announcements at a concert
starring Enrique Iglesias, Sugar Ray and Macy Gray. Nightspots,
particularly those in beach communities, are also being asked to post
warnings for their female customers.

"We would much rather prevent a rape than prosecute a rapist," Dist.
Atty. Paul Pfingst said at a news conference Friday at San Diego State
University.

While there have been other anti-rape campaigns, notably a nationwide
effort launched by Atty. Gen. Janet Reno in Santa Monica two years
ago, this one adds a new theme: that young women should protect each
other, particularly when they go out partying.

The television ads are being placed in shows with a high percentage of
women viewers between 14 and 25 years old, including daytime soap
operas and nighttime dramas such as "Dawson's Creek" and "Party of
Five."

In one of the ads, Shannon MacMillan, a member of the U.S. soccer
team, which won the 1999 Women's World Cup, talks of the value of
teamwork on the soccer field and then translates the lesson to
everyday life: "If a friend has too much to drink or can't take care
of herself, help her, before somebody hurts her."

In another ad, an unidentified young woman, talking of a real-life
experience, says her friend "was so drunk she didn't know what was
happening until it was too late. . . . I should have been a better
friend."

The third ad is aimed at convincing men that having sex with a woman
who is drunk or unconscious or too woozy to give consent is rape.

"Men are taught that it's OK to 'get it' any way they can," said Mary
Susan Sterner, an official with the local chapter of the National
Organization for Women. "That's the mind-set we have to change."

Local statistics show that 80% of rape victims know their attackers,
and in 60% to 70% of the cases drugs, alcohol or both are involved.

Sixty percent of victims are between 14 and 26 years
old.

A former San Diego State football star recently pleaded guilty to
charges that he smuggled steroids and the date-rape drug clonazepam
from Mexico for several years to sell to fellow students.

Nationwide, rape prevention activists have said that date-rape drugs,
also called club drugs or rave drugs, have led to an epidemic of
sexual assaults.

In February, President Clinton signed a bill toughening federal laws
against possession and distribution of the drug GHB, or gamma
hydroxybutyrate, which has been linked to at least 58 deaths since
1990. The bill was pushed by the Michigan congressional delegation
after a 15-year-old girl in Detroit died after drinking a soda laced
with GHB at a party.

Last week, four young men were sentenced to prison terms ranging from
five to 15 years in the Detroit case. Like several other drugs, GHB,
often called liquid ecstasy, is easily concocted.