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Donovan Pamela , Drink Spiking and Predatory Drugging: A Modern History (New York : Palgrave MacMillan , 2016), pp. 294, $99.00, hardback, ISBN: 9-781137-575166.
Book Review
History is replete with examples of crime stories that, despite little or no empirical evidence, have been instrumental in shaping law, policy and social behaviour. Perhaps no other crime stories have been more prolific and enduring than those described by Pamela Donovan in her new book, Drink Spiking and Predatory Drugging: A Modern History. In this comprehensive and thoroughly engaging book, Donovan provides a historical account of the myriad drink-spiking and predatory drugging allegations, as well as actual (albeit rare) documented criminal cases, over the past 150 years in the United States and other countries, including the United Kingdom and Australia.
Drink Spiking and Predatory Drugging takes readers on an historical journey that starts in the mid-1800s during the industrial era with claims of predators (such as 'saloon villains') using chloroform and other synthetic drugs to knock out their victims in order to rob and rape them (Chapter 2). It then moves on to drug-related stories of the twentieth century, including claims of LSD-spiking especially prevalent during the 1960s and early 1970s (Chapters 3 and 4). The journey ends with the most recent allegations of drug-facilitated sexual assault by Rohypnol, GHB and other so-called date rape drugs (Chapter 5). Though originating in the 1990s, the latest drink-spiking narrative persists within both drug...