The DOI matches its Crossref record.
A multifactorial critical appraisal of substances found in drug facilitated sexual assault cases
Open accessAbstract
Drug-facilitated sexual assault (DFSA) is a sexual act in which the victim is unable to give or rescind consent due to intoxication with alcohol and/or drugs that have been self-administered (opportunistic DFSA) or covertly administered by the perpetrator (predatory DFSA). The drugs that are most commonly associated with DFSA are flunitrazepam and gamma-hydroxybutyric acid (GHB). They cause sedation and amnesia, are readily dissolved in beverages and are rapidly eliminated from the system. However, drugs such as amphetamine and cocaine, which are central nervous system (CNS) stimulants, have also been encountered in DFSA cases. This paper critically evaluates trend data from cohort studies, identifying drugs that have been detected in DFSA cases and reports on the differences in drugs used between opportunistic and predatory DFSA. This is the first time that a critical multifactorial review of drugs used in DFSA has been conducted. The pharmacology of each identified group of drugs is presented, showing why these compounds are of interest and used in the perpetration of DFSA. Furthermore, the pharmacology and mechanisms of action are described to explain how the drugs cause their effects. It is also apparent from this study that if meaningful data is to be exchanged between law enforcement agencies then it is necessary to agree on protocols for the collection of evidence and the drugs for which analysis should be performed and indeed on the analytical methods used.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
No references could be resolved yet.
Research works printed but not linked: 22
- Du Mont, 2003, The role of “real rape” and “real victim” stereotypes in the police reporting practices of sexually assaulted women, Violence Against Women, 9, 466, 10.1177/1077801202250960 · DOI
- Hammond, 2016, Perceptions of male rape and sexual assault in a male sample from the United Kingdom: barriers to reporting and the impacts of victimization, J. Investig. Psychol. Offender Profiling, 14, 133, 10.1002/jip.1462 · DOI
- Johnson, 2017, Why doesn’t she just report it? Apprehensions and contradictions for women who report sexual violence to the police, Can. J. Women Law, 29, 36, 10.3138/cjwl.29.1.36 · DOI
- Hindmarch, 2001, Forensic urinalysis of drug use in cases of alleged sexual assault, J. Clin. Forensic Med., 8, 197, 10.1054/jcfm.2001.0513 · DOI
- Scott-Ham, 2005, Toxicological findings in cases of alleged drug facilitated sexual assault in the United Kingdom, J. Clin. Forensic Med., 12, 175, 10.1016/j.jcfm.2005.03.009 · DOI
- Hall, 2008, Alleged drug facilitated sexual assault (DFSA) in Northern Ireland from 1999 to 2005. A study of blood alcohol levels, J. Forensic Leg. Med., 15, 497, 10.1016/j.jflm.2008.05.006 · DOI
- Du Mont, 2010, Drug-facilitated sexual assault in Ontario, Canada: toxicological and DNA findings, J. Forensic Leg. Med., 17, 333, 10.1016/j.jflm.2010.05.004 · DOI
- Hagemann, 2013, Ethanol and drug findings in women consulting a sexual assault center — associations with clinical characteristics and suspicions of drug-facilitated sexual assault, J. Forensic Leg. Med., 20, 777, 10.1016/j.jflm.2013.05.005 · DOI
- Hurley, 2006, The epidemiology of drug facilitated sexual assault, J. Clin. Forensic Med., 13, 181, 10.1016/j.jcfm.2006.02.005 · DOI
- Olesti, 2016, GC–MS quantification method for mephedrone in plasma and urine: application to human pharmacokinetics, J. Anal. Toxicol., 41, 100
- George, 2000, Central nervous system stimulants, Baillieres Best Pract. Res. Clin. Endocrinol. Metab., 14, 79, 10.1053/beem.2000.0055 · DOI
- Christensen, 1973, Biological activity of pentobarbital metabolites, J. Pharm. Sci, 62, 1722, 10.1002/jps.2600621036 · DOI
- Griffin, 2013, Benzodiazepine pharmacology and central nervous system-mediated effects, Ochsner J., 13, 214
- Löscher, 2012, How theories evolved concerning the mechanism of action of barbiturates, Epilepsia, 53, 12, 10.1111/epi.12025 · DOI
- Wise, 1984, Neural mechanisms of the reinforcing action of cocaine, NIDA Res. Monogr., 50, 15
- Calipari, 2013, Amphetamine mechanisms and actions at the dopamine terminal revisited, J. Neurosci., 33, 8923, 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1033-13.2013 · DOI
- Pearlman, 1976, Antihistamines: pharmacology and clinical use, Drugs, 12, 258, 10.2165/00003495-197612040-00002 · DOI
- Parsons, 2006, Histamine and its receptors, Br. J. Pharmacol., 147, S127, 10.1038/sj.bjp.0706440 · DOI
- Church, 2013, Pharmacology of antihistamines, Indian J. Dermatol., 58, 219, 10.4103/0019-5154.110832 · DOI
- Froehlich, 1997, Opioid peptides, Alcohol Heal Res. World., 21, 132
- Pathan, 2012, Basic opioid pharmacology: an update, Br. J. Pain, 6, 11, 10.1177/2049463712438493 · DOI
- Wise, 1985, Brain mechanisms of drug reward and euphoria, Psychiatr. Med., 3, 445
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Off-label and investigational drugs in the treatment of alcohol use disorder: A critical review
Fischler, P. V., Soyka, M., Seifritz, E., & Mutschler, J. (2022) · Frontiers in Pharmacology · doi:10.3389/fphar.2022.927703 · Cited by 34
Fields, L., Young, D. A., Patel, A. R., Munroe, C., Shumway, M., Bell, S., & Richer, L. A. (2022) · European Journal of Psychotraumatology · doi:10.1080/20008198.2022.2057165 · Cited by 22
Metadata
- Authors
- Grela, A., Gautam, L., & Cole, M. D.
- Affiliations
- Anglia Ruskin University (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Gautam, Lata
- Venue
- Forensic Science International
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2018-11
- Volume
- 292
- Pages
- 50-60
- ISSN
- 0379-0738 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2892284603
- Cited by
- 69
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 10 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 13 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 2
- FWCI
- 0.86
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- figshare.com
- Licence
- Locations
- Forensic Science International (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Anglia Ruskin Research Online (Anglia Ruskin University) (submittedVersion)
- Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Funders
- Department of Biomedical and Forensic Sciences
- Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, UK
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics › Toxicology › Forensic Toxicology and Drug Analysis
- Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Sexual Assault and Victimization Studies
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Epidemiology › Substance Abuse Treatment and Outcomes
- Keywords
- drug-facilitated sexual assault, flunitrazepam, gamma-hydroxybutyric acid, amphetamine, cocaine, sedatives, amnesia, poisoning, mechanism of action
- MeSH terms
- Central Nervous System Stimulants, Analgesics, Opioid, Antidepressive Agents, Barbiturates, Benzodiazepines, Cannabis, Cocaine, Dose-Response Relationship, Drug, Half-Life, Histamine Antagonists, Humans, Sex Offenses, Sodium Oxybate, Substance Abuse Detection, Crime Victims, Substance-Related Disorders, Forensic Toxicology
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
