Alcohol Is Now A Date Rape Drug in Wisconsin

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Here's a sobering thought, the top party school in Wisconsin is waking up with a blinding headache the morning after realising that alcohol is now being considered a possible "date rape drug". It isn't surprising though, seeing how it has the same inebriating effects that the common date rape drug does. The only problem is that alcohol is legal and people know that it IS an intoxicant.

While it is accepted that alcohol impairs one's senses, if you drink, it, you've consented to the effects of this drug. Alcohol is as much of a drug as Marijuana, Hash, Crystal Methamphetamine and Heroin. The only difference is that it is perfectly legal for consumption once one is of age of majority, in one's house or in a licensed pub.

Alcohol is now placed on par with other common date rape drugs such as GHB, Ketamine and Flunitrazepam (Rohypnol) [Date Rape Drugs] following a case in which a date rape victim had been sexually assaulted after consuming enough alcohol to impair her.

The change, long sought by rape- victim advocates in Wisconsin, means that victims who are very drunk during a sexual encounter can be judged incapable of giving consent, triggering a possible second-degree sexual assault charge.

Prior to the change, which took effect in June, a victim who had been drinking typically had to be unconscious to be deemed incapable of consenting to sex.

With any sensitive issue like this, there are many considerations to factor in, especially time delays, which can infringe on the judicial process for both the defendant and the victim, especially since witnesses can be harder to track with a longer period of time having passed between the crime and the report.

Blanchard last week confirmed that his office declined to prosecute the case, which was investigated by campus police and forwarded to his office in May. He said it wouldn't be ethical for him to discuss his specific reasons for rejecting it.

In general, though, Blanchard said sexual assault cases involving long delays - Dunn waited 15 months to report hers - and alcohol use by victims and perpetrators can be harder to win in court.

"If jurors believe that inhibitions were down and everybody was drinking, it may be regarded as regretted but essentially consented sex," Blanchard said.

Unlike other convention date rape drugs, alcohol would've likely been consumed by both parties and thus, result in a case where neither party is guilty simply due to the fact that they consented through both being equally as inebriated.

There is one problem with a law like this and it is that if its a party and all people are consuming alcohol, how does alcohol become a date rape drug if both parties have consumed it? If they both have, then, both are liable for having sexually assaulted the other, since they'd have been legally too intoxicated to provide the necessary consent.

Of course, who's going to listen when a guy whines about getting drunk and being sexually taken advantage of by a girl?



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