MU OFFERS DATE-RAPE DRUG TESTS

Alarmed that students at the University of Missouri-Columbia could be
victims of date-rape drugging, university health and law enforcement
officials have teamed up in Columbia to provide free tests to MU students
who think they might have been drugged, said Joan Masters of MU's Wellness
Resource Center.

Terri Marki of the Columbia Police Department and a member of the task
force on date-rape drugs said she was not aware of any positive tests from
the program. Ten to 15 tests have been given out since October, Masters said.

The program started after a young woman came to the Wellness Resource
Center and complained that she had gone to a hospital to be tested after
she thought she had been drugged. The woman claimed she had not been taken
seriously because hospital staff thought she was just drunk, Masters said.

Date-rape drugs are powerful sedatives that dissolve instantly into liquid
and can be slipped into someone's drink. Drugged victims might feel as
though they are extremely drunk only minutes after drinking a date-rape
drug such as gamma hydroxy buyterate, or GHB; rohypnol, or roofies; and
ketamine.

"The particular physiological effects include sedation," said Paul Cary,
the director of University Hospital's toxicology lab. The lab donated its
services to test the first 25 kits given out for the program.

"Most of these also include muscle relaxant properties, they reduce
inhibition or the individual's ability to resist unwanted advances, and
they also produce amnesia so the individual can't remember what happened,"
Cary said.

Students can get the tests from several 24-hour sites, including a
convenience market on campus, residence halls and some sorority houses.
Test kits also are available from health centers on campus. The tests
require a urine sample, and students can hold onto the sample until the
toxicology lab at University Hospital opens and they can turn their test in
for screening.

Tests are completely confidential, Masters said, and students can call
within one week and use a number code to get their results. The results
from tests given so far in the program are being analyzed to determine just
how large a problem date-rape drugging is in Columbia. One problem has been
getting tests to people who think they might have been drugged in time to
detect the drugs. The drugs are water-soluble, which means they are
fast-acting and leave the body within hours of being ingested.

Another problem task force members have seen is underage students who might
be drinking at bars or parties illegally and are afraid to report their
experiences to police because they do not want to be charged with underage
drinking. Police can only charge a minor with possession or an
open-container violation, Marki said. There is no public intoxication law
in Columbia, she said.

Despite the absence of a positive test, members of the task force insist
date-rape drugging is taking place in Columbia.

"It's so hard to tell because people are not reporting it. It's very
similar to rape and sexual assault" in terms of the number of unreported
incidents, Masters said.

A pending civil lawsuit that names the university and a fraternity as
defendants claims that date-rape drugs were used on an MU student. The
federal court case is scheduled for trial in April.

The drugs are cheap, sometimes costing as little as $1 per dose, and they
are highly available, said Lt. Brian Weimer of the University Police. "It's
a small drug that can be easily concealed, and for the most part you could
get the recipe off the Internet to make these drugs."

The Missouri Revised Statutes include rape involving a victim who is too
incapacitated to say no in the forcible rape category, and convictions can
carry with them a life sentence.

Date-rape drugs made national headlines in 2000 when President Bill Clinton
signed the Hillory J. Farias and Samantha Reid Date-Rape Drug Prohibition
Act. The act, named for two young women who died after they had been
drugged, made GHB a Schedule-1 drug, effectively banning it and putting it
in the same class of drug as heroine or cocaine.