Santa Barbara Party-Goers Alerted to Drink Drugging

In the heart of downtown, college students and young adults often wander en masse from bar to bar when live music is playing on weekends.

But after a series of “dosings,” in which patrons have been slipped drugs that can render them intoxicated or unconscious, bar and restaurant owners have launched a campaign to warn revelers of the danger.

There are new posters in women’s restrooms, and bouncers are handing out “Party Smart” cards warning bar-goers to watch their drinks carefully, to use the buddy system and to refuse drinks from strangers.

The effort was triggered by a case in which a 24-year-old Swedish woman living in Santa Barbara was allegedly raped after two men slipped drugs into her tequila drink at a popular downtown bar. Investigators say that one assailant photographed his smiling roommate raping the unconscious woman in the back seat of a car.

The incident shook the close-knit community of business owners in the State Street area, and they decided to take action.

“My dad always talked about how people might try slipping me a Mickey,” said Bob Stout, owner of the Wildcat, where the rape incident originated. “The Mickey has changed. We were all absolutely appalled by this.”

Stout said the episode earlier this year prompted him to call a meeting of downtown bar and restaurant owners, and the group began working with Fighting Back, a division of the Santa Barbara Council on Alcoholism.

“I really find this is a small town,” Stout said. “If the perpetrators were caught, and if we can get the word out that guys won’t get away with this, we can make a difference.”

Ann Gibbons, co-owner of Joe’s Cafe on State Street, echoes that belief. “We are trying to find how the drugs might be brought in, what to look for, if someone seems totally drunk after just one drink,” Gibbons said. “Hopefully the awareness will make the criminals much less likely to do this.”

Police suspect the drug GHB, gamma-hydroxybutyrate, was involved in the rape.

“We’ve had 10 people in the past year who seem to think they have been dosed, 11 counting this big case,” said Santa Barbara Det. Mike McGrew. “Not all of them have been raped. But even more don’t report it because they can’t describe what happened. That’s what we see: people just totally confused.”

The photographed rape allegedly happened in January, investigators said, but the woman didn’t report it then because she was uncertain what had happened after she blacked out. The assailants allegedly showed the pictures around, and a person who saw the photos in late April informed the woman. She then contacted police.

“They had six different pictures,” McGrew said. “We never would have found them without the pictures. Like a lot of these victims, she wasn’t sure what happened.”

Two Santa Barbara men are awaiting a preliminary hearing on rape charges.

Maria Long, a coordinator with Fighting Back, said the incident was a wake-up call for sleepy Santa Barbara, where there is a perception of safety.

“I think it’s going on all over the place,” Long said. “I’ve been asked to send our material to Antelope Valley and other places. Maybe we are jumping on it a little quicker.”

Long said the dangers of GHB go beyond rape to the possibilities of brain damage and death. GHB is usually a home-brewed mix, a synthetic chemical that can be made from household solvents and degreasers.

When used in combination with ecstasy, a popular and illegal drug, GHB can cause a spike in temperature that can be fatal, experts report. One death in the Santa Barbara County town of Isla Vista is suspected to have been associated with a mixture of the drugs.

GHB first came to the attention of authorities as a recreational drug. It was when users showed the symptoms of being extremely intoxicated quickly that it evolved into a date rape drug, like the better known Rohypnol. GHB is metabolized quickly, staying in the blood stream for only four hours, McGrew said.

Some college students in Santa Barbara said that GHB, in its clear liquid form, is sometimes sold by the capful at parties.

“I had never seen it before last year,” said Leah Bergner, a junior at UC Santa Barbara who works as a sexual health peer educator. “GHB was more of a recreational drug when it hit last year, but people thought it was 10 times worse than being drunk. It puts people in a deep slumber.”

Joyce Dudley, a deputy district attorney who handles rape cases for Santa Barbara County, said she has seen a sad trend with the victims of such rapes.

“I had thought after years of prosecuting violent rapists, that maybe if you couldn’t remember anything, it wouldn’t be as bad. I now think it’s worse. These victims come in looking at me like the walking dead.”