RAPE: DRUGS USED
ROHYPNOL

Two teenage girls from Potchefstroom were found naked and dead in Mariston hotel, Hillbrow, in September, 1999, each had needle puncture marks on their backs.

Police declared that the cause of their deaths was unknown, an autopsy could not determined the cause of death. The girls, Rieksie Greyling (17) and Chrisna van Eeeden (18) were quietly buried by their parents in Potchefstroom. While some at the Mariston claim the girls were runners for drug lords who had them killed, they may have been victims of Flunitrazepam better known as Rohypnol, the date rape drug banned in America but cheaply available on prescription in South Africa - it costs around R2 per tablet.

Rapists are increasingly using the drug in syringes which they stab their victims with - in the past the drug has been dissolved in a drink. Flunitrazepam is sold in South Africa as either Rohypnol manufactured by Roche, Rolab Flunitrazepam or Insom, both manufactured by local druggists, respectively Rolab and Lennon.

Concern about the drug is so acute that the three manufactuters have been meeting with the Medicines Control Council to find ways to make it more difficult to be used in rape. Lennon is withdrawing the product completely from the market and has discontinued making it.

Roche has responded to the US ban and worldwide anger, by reducing its formulation to 1mg instead of 2mg and filling it with a blue dye that froths in liquid and leaves a scum on the surface. Rolab is taking similar measures with its drug - except instead of a scum, the drug will leave white spots floating in a drink and give it a bitter taste. While Lennon has advised medical practitioners of its steps and withdrawn its product, neither Roche nor Rolab have taken similar measures. The new Roche drug came onto the market a year ago - but there are still sizeable stocks of the old product on the market. Rolab discontinued manufacturing the 2mg flavourless drug at the beginning of this month, and will only begin making the new drug when existing stocks are exhausted in the next 6 weeks to three months, a spokesperson said.

However, its use as an injectable rape drug remains.

Flunitrazepam is usually used for insomnia or as a preanasthetic and has a similar effect to Valium, although it is 10 times more potent. It is banned in the USA and its possession can lead to a 30 year jail sentence in that country.

All across the world rapists have placed the drug in drinks which they give to women whether schoolgirls or nightclub patrons and rape the woman once it takes effect - within 15 minutes to half an hour - now however, rape clinics and police officers are reporting that increasing numbers of women are being injected with the drug.

The advantage of the drug for the rapist is that the woman appears to be awake (although some will pass out within a few hours). She on the other hand remembers little or nothing of what is happening, feels dizzy, disoriented, perhaps very cold or very warm, she has trouble talking and moving and will wake up, sometimes days later, knowing she has been raped because of her physical appearance and the fact that she is usually in a strange place.

Dr Tyrone Daniels and Dr Adrienne Wulfsohn of Sunninghill Rape Clinic report six rohypnol/flunitrazepam related rapes recently.

"A woman who lives in Boksburg went to the bank one Thursday, she got into her car and stopped at a traffic light when two guys jumped into her vehicle and stuck a syringe in her back - that is all she remembers until she awoke on the Saturday morning in a hotel, naked. There was evidence she had been raped, a receptionist remembered her coming in with two men who paid cash. The survivor has found it tremendously traumatic, one of the things that she worries about is that they may have made pornographic videos.

"The trouble is by the time the woman wakes up toxicology shows nothing, the drug is out of her system. Then there was a beauty queen - and it's astonishing how many rapists target women at beauty pageants - she went out with someone and remembers passing out and would not have known what had happened if he didn't keep phoning her and telling her. Another woman was abducted and then dropped off at a police station by the rapists the next day at 11am - the police sat her down in a corner to 'sober up' - and then brought her here at 2pm when she woke up," Daniels said. "Another young girl went to a club called Seventies in Midrand, she went to the toilet and can't remember anything else, she woke up the next morning in Braamfontein with her pants around her ankles. Yet another 15-year-old went to a rave in Midrand and woke up three days later. These rapes are very traumatic, the women lose time and don't know what happened, some refuse counselling or medication. Their other difficulty is they go to the police and say, 'I think I've been raped' and the police say, 'what do you mean, you think?'" Wulfsohn noted.

She advised women to drink only from cans that they opened themselves and if they went to the toilet to abandon any drink they had not finished.

Jennifer Wilson of Roche who manufacture Rohypnol, said they "have been asking the Medicines Control Council to remove the 2mg product off the shelves, they told us it would be off the market within 3 months." However, the Medicines Control Council has done nothing to inform the public.

The new Rohypnol formulation, Wilson said, "has a blue dye and will froth so even in a dark drink it is detectable, it also develops a scum on the drink. I can't figure out how it could be injectable because the new tablet also has a hard compressed tablet that is film coated, so even to crush or dissolve it is difficult."

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