Page 10 - Business Travel

8 Entertaining

For those drinking in crowded places that you are unfamiliar Drugs can leave you in a state that leaves you unprotected for
with remember the drink aware campaigns that ran a couple a huge range of crimes from pickpocketing, cashpoint theft,
of years ago. These campaigns highlighted the issue of through kidnapping to rape. Total collapse may not be the
someone adding something to your drink. desired effect from the attacker. They may prefer a state of
relaxed compliance so that suspicion isn’t raised if staff at the
Assume these warnings were only for single young females venue are not involved.
out partying and you make the mistake of risking your life.
They apply to everyone regardless of status, occupation, sex Drugs like this can be easily added to drinks by either the bar
or position. staff or someone tampering with a drink especially after a
couple of alcoholic drinks have had their effect, so you don’t
There are many drugs that when added to a drink leave you notice.
appearing drunk, confused or possibly unconscious. These
drugs are readily available and include Rohypnol, GHB and Open topped drinks are a significant risk area especially
ketamine which are probably the most discussed. The time it when left while you go to the toilet, dancefloor or leave them
takes for the drugs to take effect differs and so does the time unattended in any other way.
they remain active. Depending on the drug and the amount
used you might seem drunk which is why people including As with many assaults the principle of splitting the heard is
security staff sometimes don’t come to your aid. the method of many assailants. So, if out for a drink with
colleagues in the evening be additionally alert if you are
These substances are sometimes known as date rape drugs, separated from the group. Once no longer part of the group
but experts prefer the designation drug-facilitated sexual you are potentially a future victim.
assault, but in fact they don’t only lead to sexual assaults and
definitely not just sexual assaults on young women.

Across England &
Wales there were

2650 reported
incidents of drinks

being spiked between
2015-2019 72% of
who were female

(Robinson, B. 2019).

10 of the biggest risks of business travel
© Tony Willis 2020 www.beawaretakecare.com