The Denver Police Department for the first time began tracking reports last year of people who believe they were the victims of drugging after a spate of such reports.
In 2023, 46 alleged drugging incidents were reported to Denver police. So far this year, five cases were reported between Jan. 1 and 23, according to the department.
Of those 51 cases, one arrest has been made. Nineteen of the investigations remain inactive, 12 victims did not cooperate, seven are inactive pending lab results, seven remain open, four were refused by the district attorney and one was referred to another agency, according to Denver police.
Before 2023, Denver police did not specifically track cases in which victims thought they were drugged.
Denver police’s tracking of drugging cases isn’t strictly tied to sexual assault, though the use of drugs such as Rohypnol — a medication used to treat severe insomnia that is illegal in the U.S. — to incapacitate rape victims goes back decades.
“We had recognized just prior that there were several that occurred in a short period of time and that’s not a data field that was captured previously, so we had no way of knowing what those numbers were and what the scope of that issue was,” Denver police Cmdr. Matt Clark said. “It gave us an opportunity to start tracking that so we could have a sense of how frequently this was occurring to see if there were any patterns or trends.”
There is not enough data at this point to determine patterns or trends, Clark said.
Michelle Metz, a Denver Health nurse on the forensic examiner team, said drugging incidents are a complicated issue.
Often, Metz said, drugging incidents center around alcohol, so a victim could wake up the next day feeling like something was wrong but blame it on the alcohol.
Other times, she said, a victim may take a while to process what happened to them and by the time they come in to get examined, any potential substance they ingested could be gone from their system.
Additionally, Metz said Denver Health tests for 12 of the more common drugging substances but that does not account for every substance someone could use to drug a victim.
“I have to tell patients a negative answer doesn’t actually mean it’s definitely negative,” Metz said. “It’s horrible.”
Symptoms to look out for that could indicate a person has been drugged include drinking one or two drinks and then feeling like “a curtain has come down” and there are no memories after that, Metz said. If someone wakes up feeling much more sick than they usually do from a hangover or they are extremely confused, those can be signs of drugging as well, she said.
People who drug others use substances that are most readily available to them, Metz said. For example, people can go to their doctor and get Ambian, Ativan or Xanax prescription to help with sleep or anxiety, but when mixed with alcohol, those drugs can prevent people from making memories, she said.
“We refer to it as somebody being ‘roofied,’” Metz said. “I don’t know how many people are going to Mexico or wherever to buy Rohypnol when you can go to your doctor and say you have a condition and they write a prescription for it.”
If someone suspects they’re a victim of drugging, Clark said they should seek medical attention and make a law enforcement report.
“If you think this has happened to you, it’s not your fault,” Metz said. “You didn’t do anything to deserve it. It’s not our job to not get drugged. It’s other people’s job not to do this crap to us.”
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