Rape Drugs on a rise

It’s a Thursday night and the girls are getting dressed to go pub-hopping as it is Ladies night, their chance to let their hair down and dance away the blues. Chennai and partying don’t really seem to be in-sync with each other unlike the other metros where partying and pubbing are a part and parcel of the cosmopolitan culture. Chennai is a much more conservative city compared to its other southern counterparts Hyderabad and Bangalore.

But, with increasing presence of Chennai on the I.T map, there is an increase in the ‘party animals’ and ‘watering holes’. The city has witnessed the emergence of many popular pubs in the past five years itself. This smoked out the hidden drug scene of this ultra-conservative city which prides itself for its coffee and Carnatic music. A few years back, smoking weed etc was restricted to the elites and the so called ‘intellectuals’ of the IIT, but with increasing urbanisation and job opportunities thanks to the I.T boom, more and more youth are willing to indulge in these habits.
Party drugs and rape drugs have managed to raise their ugly head in the country and have penetrated even the most conservative of cities. Rohypnol", which has a dubious 'date rape" reputation, is a sedative and a hypnotic drug and the city police have discovered that this drug is the rage at late night parties at pubs and discos. The only person who can make us realise the horrors of date rape is a victim herself. Shreya ( name changed) a 23 year old executive, drugged and raped by an acquaintance with whom she had gone to a very popular pub in the city. She recalls being offered a drink by her ‘friend’ and she found herself the next day in a hotel room bruised and raped. She did not report the matter to the police as she felt that the police was bound to blame her for whatever happened. These drugs render the victim physically powerless, unable to decline sex, create dis-orientation in time and space and even induce memory lapse. Being colorless and odorless, spiking a drink is simple and its strength is double that of many other drugs. Many times girls are raped not by strangers, but by persons they know who may be friends or boyfriends. The notion that a decent, educated person cannot be a rapist is continuously challenged in date rape cases. There are more than 20 drugs used for sexual assault, according to the Journal of American College Health. Three common drugs are: GHB (gamma- hydroxybutyric acid), Rohypnol (flunitrazepam) and Ketamine (ketamine hydrochloride).

According to Srikanth, a regular party-goer (name changed), the drug though banned is acquired through the internet by placing orders. The drug is then sent to them through couriers and parcels. He says that there is a strong network in the city for circulating the drugs to the elite and salaried. Hari, another regular party-goer says that rave parties, though not quite a rage happen quite regularly in Chennai but are a big hush-hush affair and for a select elite crowd. “Beach parties are quite a rage in Chennai” says Nikhil , an executive. And he says that drugs like marijuana, LSD’s, ecstasy are a popular at such parties. Another party goer Prerna (name changed), a student of Loyola college, says that in the past 2 years or so, the number of girls who are venturing into these indulgences has increased manifold. A woman is vulnerable to sexual assault when she is intoxicated and this trend is quite alarming. Shalini (name changed) another regular at these parties, says she started drinking because of peer pressure and to be ‘cool’. These drugs produce a sensation of floating or flying outside one’s own body, says Kiran (name changed) a DJ at a famous pub in the city. He says that drug abuse is rampant in these pubs. When asked how one finds these drug peddlers in a pub, he says that if you are keen on getting hold of a drug it’s easy to find the source. He says how the people who circulate the drugs are often college-going students who are looking for easy money.

Though parties here don’t go on till 3 am or 4 am like they do in other metros, because of a strict law and order mechanism, the fact remains that these so called crackdowns haven’t really curbed the abuse of these drugs. What remains to be seen is how far the conservative attitude of this city will protect it from falling prey to the ‘toxic’ party culture like in the other metros.