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THE most recent data on instances of drink spiking in Australia was collected in 2002-03.
According to the Australian Institute of Criminology, it is estimated that between those years between 3000 and 4000 suspected incidents of drink spiking occurred in Australia and an estimated one-third of these incidents involved sexual assault.
Further data from the AIC revealed:
● Four out of five victims were female;
● Almost half of drink spiking victims were aged under 24;
● About 5 per cent of incidents involved robbery;
● Apprehension of offenders was very uncommon;
● It was estimated that less than 15 per cent of suspected drink spiking sexual assaults were reported to police, and between 20 and 25 per cent of suspected drink spiking non-sexual assault cases were reported to police.
The report stated that unless someone has actually seen someone else put a substance into their drink, or had blood and urine tests which returned a positive result, it is difficult to know for certain whether a drink has been spiked.
"In the majority of cases where a victim suspects that his/her drink has been spiked the suspicion stems from the effects which occur after drinks have been consumed," the report said.
"Such effects include memory loss, nausea, vomiting, unconsciousness and dizziness.
"Due to the fact that these effects can also occur after voluntary consumption of alcohol and drugs some people have argued that victims may misattribute these effects and, therefore, mistakenly believe that their drink had been spiked when in fact they had consumed more alcohol or drugs than they thought they had.
"While this cannot be ruled out as a possible explanation for some reported incidents it would be dangerous to assume that this explanation applied to all or most incidents of drink spiking."