Most spiked drink victims actually legless

Researchers at Wrexham Maelor Hospital who tested wobbly hospital patients who claimed their drinks had been spiked found most were simply legless, the BBC reports.

A year-long study - "aimed to assess the scale of drink-spiking in the area and identify problems at specific clubs and pubs" - revealed that just one fifth tested positive for any drugs whatsoever.

Of 75 people who reckoned they'd been targeted, 65 per cent were found to be twice the legal drink-drive limit, with an impressive 24 per cent clocking up three times the limit.

Wrexham GP, Dr Peter Saul, told BBC Radio Wales: "There had always been a suspicion that people would say that their drinks had been spiked when perhaps they had misjudged how much alcohol they were taking. If you go home and your parents are there, and you are vomiting on the path, and you come in in a terrible state, you get sympathy if you say 'oh, my drink was spiked.' You don't get sympathy if you say 'we spent too long in the bar'."

Cardiff-based surgeon Professor Jonathan Shepherd - who has conducted breathalyser tests on around 900 late-night drinkers in the city's centre, and reported a "sizeable minority who are drinking huge amounts of alcohol" - told the same programme: "It really puts to bed a myth that's very widely held that drinks are spiked when in reality they are not."

He did, however, admit that spiking, often by drugs such as GBH, ketamine and Rohypnol, was "still a risk" and advised drinking from a bottle rather than a "large glass". ®