Are you lucky enough to have the Legal system help you? Final Revised

 Are you lucky enough to have the Legal system help you?

Partying in college is inevitable. Hooking up in college is also close to inevitable. What’s even more inevitable is getting roofied at a party or a bar. This can be very scary and most definitely will not raise your confidence. The legal system continues to fail victims of drugged sexual assault every day.

Flaws Within the System

Sexual assault is a hot topic of today's time and many people have differing opinions on it. These opinions are irrelevant unless backed up by substantial evidence, so here is the truth. Proving that you were drugged is quite easy. You can get a drug test done that will prove everything you’ve said. However, what isn’t so easy to prove is who drugged you. With a simple, “I didn’t do it” The date rape drugger will easily get away with what they did. 

Another flaw within itself is the date rape drug testing system. It is severely faulty and does not work in favor of the victims. Buzzfeed news states that “The testing equipment in some labs isn’t sensitive enough to detect substances at low concentrations...it may be hours or even days before the victim has recovered sufficiently to report an assault. Other labs test only blood, even though evidence of drugs last much longer in urine, or don’t have the resources to test sexual assault cases at all” (Adams). Imagine racking up enough courage to get tested after going through something so traumatic, but you can’t even get proper testing done! Sounds like the best country in the World isn’t really the best. 

Continuing on with the numerous issues that accompany getting drug tested, your test could show a false negative. Meaning, even if you were forced against your will to ingest a drug that you were unaware that you ingested, you could still be seen as a liar. False negatives can quickly be the beginning of the end of your investigation. So the legal system doesn’t support you and now the hospital won’t support you either? That is a very pathetic representation of our legal system.

Why Other People Are Wrong

Many people will argue that it is not the hospital's fault that they are unable to provide evidence of drugs in a victim's body, which is something we can all agree with, However! There should be no excuse as to why we are unable to advance our research into date rape drugs and provide a better more advanced test that will pick up on even the smallest amounts of drugs in someone's body. If they can detect drugs in the autopsy of a dead person, then you’d think they would be able to detect drugs in a living person’s body. Or maybe it is more so they don’t want to, even though they have the funds for it. 

Why are we so Naive about Sexual Assault Involving Drugs? 

Sexual Assault cases involving drugs are extremely understudied. With a lack of information done on them, it is difficult to judge how common these are or how common it is for someone to get justice. It is stated that “In 2005 a Department of Justice funded study found that of about 144 participants who reported a sexual assault, around 4% had been drugged surreptitiously. When including people who had consumed drugs or alcohol willingly, the study found that 35% of the reported cases qualified as drug-facilitated” (Weiss). These low statistics help to prove the fact that even if you try to seek justice, it will most likely not work in your favor. Since only 4% of people were drugged surreptitiously and 96% of people were obviously drugged, then how come the odds of taking your investigation to court are so low? It amazes me that these things go unnoticed.  

Victims of roofied sexual assault are failed by the justice system and testing protocol every day. You would think that in 2021 they would have overcome and fixed these flawed systems. However, still continuing to make no changes really shows where their priorities lie. It is humiliating that the “Best Country in the World” is represented like this. Body autonomy is most definitely not on top of the legal system's agenda if they continue to let these victims be silenced.