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A few years ago, I worked in nightclub security. During my training course,* the instructor told us that it was common for people to come up and claim that they had been spiked with something, but that in 92%† of cases it was just excessive alcohol intoxication.‡

In my experience, a lot of people who believe they have been spiked do not end up in hospital, but some do. Presumably, those who do are screened for drugs (particularly if they wish to press charges), so surely somewhere out there is data showing how many of those screenings come up positive.§

So, my question: What proportion of suspected drug spikings turn out to be just that, rather than overintoxication of alcohol or something else?

Everything I can find on this seems to a) focus on the prevalence of spiking generally and b) relies on self-reporting rather than later toxicology results. For example, this 2016 paper made some waves by claiming that 1 in 13 of its surveyed students reported having been spiked, but is all self-reported. Similarly for this report. Finally, this BBC article says there have been no convictions for spiking in the last five years, which could suggest that most alleged spikings do not show up as such on subsequent tests,| but could also be for any number of other reasons.

*In the UK, security work requires professional training and a government license.

† It may have been higher, but certainly something in the 90s

‡ However, this could be both someone forgetting how much they'd drunk or a case of someone giving them more alcohol than they thought (e.g., double vodka cokes instead of singles), the latter of which would still be considered spiking.

§ Although, of course, it may be hard to tell whether traces of cocaine, to give one example, are the result of the casualty taking it themselves, or having a drink spiked with it, or possibly even both.

| And if someone is just spiked with alcohol, I imagine it would be near-impossible to be able to prosecute this.

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    One study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2750925/ – A E Dec 02 '19 at 20:57
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    Anecdotal, but I knew two people who made such claims in my junkie years. One was to his parents and the other to his employers. It's a common excuse. – Jerome Viveiros Dec 03 '19 at 05:47
  • What exactly is your definition of spiking? Many drinks that people in clubs consume already contain drugs (alcohol), but you wrote that getting a drink with more alcohol mixed in than advertised also considered. Is it spiking if it's accidental? If I get a drink with more alcohol than I wanted? Or is it only spiking if illicit drugs are intentionally added without telling the one who consumes the drink/food? How does it differ from poisoning? If I order non-alcoholic drinks but get alcoholic drinks that should be very easy to prove? – gerrit Dec 03 '19 at 10:28
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    @gerrit Spiking = the intentional addition of a drug to someone else's food or drink without their knowledge or consent. Yes, alcohol is a drug, but see ‡ in the question above. As stated in the question, I am asking about spiking with drugs _other_ than alcohol. – 08915bfe02 Dec 03 '19 at 11:41
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    @JeromeViveiros True, although it's a bit different within the context above of people coming up to security claiming to have been spiked because they feel unusual, rather than claiming to have been spiked to excuse a positive drug test. The alleged spikee has _chosen_ to make the contact in the former case. – 08915bfe02 Dec 03 '19 at 11:42
  • @Rumps Ah, I misunderstood. I missed that in the first paragraph. – Jerome Viveiros Dec 03 '19 at 12:11
  • Just a note that spiking with more alcohol is a known practice. Someone orders a vodka & orange and it gets deliberately enhanced to a triple vodka. – Weather Vane Dec 03 '19 at 20:32
  • Not sufficiently citable for an answer, but I've talked to someone who ran a lab testing drinks for contaminants, and only once in his career had he seen a drink spiked with something other than ethanol. (Ethanol, on the other hand, was extremely common.) – Mark Dec 05 '19 at 03:06
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    @AE Exactly the kind of methodology I was after, and a result (drugs of unexplained origin detected in 10% of participants, sedative drugs in only 3%) that broadly gels with the figure I quoted in the question - would you like to write this up as an answer so I can accept it? – 08915bfe02 Dec 05 '19 at 10:04
  • @WeatherVane unlikely, as it'd increase the cost to the venue if they did it. Of course if you're with a group and some other member of the group decides to pull a prank and get everyone drunk that way, yeah. – jwenting Dec 11 '19 at 06:22
  • @Mark did they test stuff on site in night clubs and bars taken from tables? Or did they test products sent to them from stores and warehouses (which is what such labs usually do, test the supply chain)? – jwenting Dec 11 '19 at 06:24
  • @jwenting obviously it would not be the staff but a "prank" on one person. – Weather Vane Dec 11 '19 at 09:12
  • @jwenting, samples sent in by the police, by hospitals, by bars, by people who thought the drink tasted "spiked", and so on. – Mark Dec 11 '19 at 22:00

1 Answers1

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AE shared the following paper as a comment: “What's being used to spike your drink? Alleged spiked drink cases in inner city London” (Greene et al., 2007, Postgrad. Med. J) [link]

The paper reports that of 78 study participants (‘consenting patients >18 years of age presenting to a large inner city London emergency department alleging they had consumed a spiked drink within the previous 12 h’), ‘ethanol was detected in 89.7% of participants’ and ‘illicit drugs were detected in 12 (15%) participants’ of whom ‘7 denied intentional exposure’. The authors conclude that ‘overall illicit or medicinal drugs of unexplained origin were detected in 8 (10%) participants [and] unexplained sedative drug exposure was detected in only 2 (3%) participants.’

It's been almost a year since I asked the question, so I think this is likely to be the best answer I get.

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