WOMEN SAY DRINKS WERE DRUGGED

Four Whistler women have been drugged against their will on separate
occasions while at Village bars in the past few weeks.

The women were at places they feel comfortable in when the assailant
slipped something into their drinks. Within minutes each women remembers
being hit with an overwhelming sense of physical weakness, illness,
dizziness S and terror that they did not know why they should feel this way.

Their plight was relayed by The Question to Dale Schweighardt, president of
Whistler's Food & Beverage Association, so bar staffs throughout town could
be alerted that someone was doing this terrible deed.

This reporter knows two of the four women personally, and knows the third
as a customer. We have changed their names to give them privacy while they
describe what happened.

We are also not naming the bars these women went to.

"This is something we've been aware of in the nightclub scene for years,"
says Schweighardt. "That it's a fairly common practice is the rotten way to
describe it."

Whistler has had this kind of bad behaviour before. "In six years here this
is only the third instance I've heard of," the association president says.
"It's something we don't take lightly. Fortunately, it's not as commonplace
as in the city."

Slipping drugs in to a woman's drink is often associated with an attempt at
a sexual assault to take advantage of the woman's weakened physical and
mental state.

Fortunately, too, none of the women who were drugged had a sexual assault.

In each case, the women were out on the town at their favourite hangout.
They had been drinking, but not a large amount. They are not wall flowers
and know their limits.

It was, the women said, a hugely humiliating situation to find themselves
completely unable to control their emotions when in the midst of the drug's
effects: physical illness to the point of constant vomiting, a wave of
paranoia, physical weakness lasting a long period of time S and amnesia.

The possible drug involved is Roh ypnol, called the "date rape drug," and
known in the bar industry as a "roofie." Its effects fit the symptoms
experienced by the Whistler women.

The drug is odourless, colourless and tasteless. It's proper use is as an
anaesthetic agent.

"I felt more humiliated than anything," says Cathy. She's a 40-year-old
single parent professional who's lived in Whistler many years.

"That's what prevents women from going to the health clinic: unless you
were with friends you trusted, people would think you're just severely
drunk. There are drunk people all the time walking around Whistler," Cathy
says.

It's that sense of helplessness and that it's all your fault that also
keeps women from reporting the incident to police.

None of these women did. If other women were also attacked, Whistler RCMP
say they haven't heard from them, confirmed Carmen Magnusson, community
policing officer.

"We may not be able to act right away, but if women report they have been
drugged we can establish a pattern in case we do catch someone," Const.
Magnusson says.

Cathy was out at one of her favourite pubs on a Saturday night a few weeks
ago. She had three glasses of wine, later confirmed by the pub's bartender,
before going down the Stroll with a girlfriend to another bar.

It was at that second bar where Cathy believes she was assaulted by a drug
in her drink. "I had ordered a crantini. A guy asked me to dance so I left
it unattended. Normally I would leave my drink next to someone I know. In
the first bar, I was playing darts so I was right next to my drink the
whole time.

"It was crowded that night. I went dancing and had a drink when I came
back. Within a few minutes I was really light-headed and dizzy," Cathy
recalls. "I felt I had to leave instantly."

This was the beginning of Cathy's nightmare.

"I remember stumbling really badly out of the bar. I knew I couldn't drive
home, but I saw some friends at the first bar I went to and went there."

That was the last thing she remembers. "I had to hear about the other
events th e next day," Cathy says.

A good thing for her that friends were at hand.

"We were winding up for the night and saw Cathy at the door," says Bill, a
bartender at the bar Cathy had stumbled to. "It was obvious she was in no
shape to drive, so I drove her home in her car. Another bartender drove my
car. She just seemed overly inebriated, but I don't ever remember seeing
Cathy like that. She's the type who can handle herself."

On the way home, Cathy became overcome with nausea. Bill had to pull the
car over so Cathy could vomit at the side of the road. Once home she
continued to vomit again and again.

"She kept saying, 'I don't know what's wrong, I don't know what's wrong',"
Bill recalls. He stayed the night on Cathy's sofa once she recovered enough
to go to bed, to be sure she'd be okay.

"Personally, I don't like to see that kind of thing happen to a friend; as
a bartender, I don't like to see that happen to a customer; and as a
manager it's not good for business," Bill says, thinking over on the night
and doing a mental checklist of who was there. "We're a friendly bar and we
have regulars who trust us."

Jennifer didn't have a friend to drive her home.

Like Cathy she was out on the town for a light evening.

In her early 30s, Jennifer is a supervisor for a large hospitality company
in charge of a crew of staff.

Indeed, she was out because of a staff party. It was a Tuesday.

"It was just pop and chips at first, so we went to a Village bar to shoot
some pool," Jennifer recalls. "We then went to another bar."

After one drink there, Jennifer remembers suddenly feeling very crabby and
paranoid. "I starting thinking that any two people - it didn't matter who
they were - were talking about me."

That was all she remembers clearly, except the upset stomach she also felt
prompted her to go for a cab.

"But that was really hazy. I don't remember going to my room," Jennifer
says. Next morning she got up for work, but had to leave after a couple
hours. "Anyone who tried to talk to me longer than two se ntences and I was
gone."

Once back home, Jennifer slept 15 hours straight. "I was totally
disoriented. I was crying, I was so stressed. I kept asking myself, 'what's
wrong with me?" Jennifer recalls. "I would be really hot and sweaty and
then really cold. Parts of my body like my hands would go numb."

In all this, both Cathy and Jennifer talk of the overwhelming sense that it
was their fault and the embarrassment that goes with that.

"I was embarrassed, I was humiliated and I thought that I'd had some sort
of mental breakdown," Jennifer says.

It was a feeling that lasted for days. "Now I feel fine, but for a good
three to four days I didn't feel comfortable," Jennifer says.

What also haunts the women is the "might have beens."

"So far as anybody knows, no one was following me, but I wouldn't have
known that," Cathy says.

"If my tummy hadn't felt bad I might have blacked out in the bar," Jennifer
says. "If I'd been 15 more minutes there, even to go to the bathroom and
wait in line S well, it's k ind of unnerving to think about," Jennifer says.

But the drug attack has left its mark.

"Why would somebody do that to me?" Jennifer asks. "This isn't right.
Whistler is such a laid-back place and now I have to be afraid to go to a
bar. I always felt safe here. I guess that's the most disappointing thing.

'This is my home and I shouldn't have to be afraid!"