Pubdate: Thu, 03 Nov 2005
Source: Burnaby Newsleader (CN BC)
Copyright: 2005 Burnaby Newsleader
Contact:  http://www.burnabynewsleader.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1315
Author: Kate Trotter
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?158 (Club Drugs)

PETITION TARGETS USERS OF DATE-RAPE DRUGS

A 10,000-name petition calling for tougher penalties for people using 
date-rape drugs has been tabled in Parliament by Conservative MP James Moore.

"Ten thousand Canadians have spoken," said Moore, MP for Port 
Moody-Westwood-Port Coquitlam. "I only wish the Liberal government was 
listening."

On International Women's Day, Moore launched a university and college 
campus campaign to gain support for his plan to enact tougher laws against 
date-rape drugs.

Moore met with students from the University of Victoria and Simon Fraser 
University in Burnaby to Memorial University in St. John's and many in 
between. Student associations and Conservative campus clubs helped gather 
names.

"In recent years date-rape drugs have become a real menace to women," Moore 
said. "The thugs and cowards who use these drugs to brutalize women need to 
be fought in our laws, and women need to know how to protect themselves 
from being victimized."

Typically date-rape drugs are secretly slipped into drinks or food; once 
ingested they act rapidly, rendering the victim unconscious and 
unresponsive with little or no memory of what happens to them while the 
drug was active, he said. Traces of the drug can leave the body within 72 
hours and often do not show up in routine toxicology screen or blood test.

"The problem - my thesis - is that these are unique drugs and should not be 
subject to the same sanctions as self-imposed drugs," Moore said. "They are 
used as a precursor to other crimes: assaults, rapes, sexual assaults and 
kidnappings. They need much tougher penalties."

Although these drugs are controlled substances like heroin and cocaine, 
possession is almost never met with jail time, and penalties are very 
light, Moore said.

Moore has a Private Member's Motion (M-189) on the issue before Parliament, 
which recommends to the government that GHB and Rohypnol, the most common 
date-rape drugs, be identified in the Criminal Code under a separate 
schedule as 'date-rape drugs' with new and tougher penalties.

The motion would also establish, in cooperation with the provinces and 
territories, a national initiative to educate women on the dangers of 
date-rape drugs and related substances; and create a national task force to 
establish new guidelines for the collection and documentation of evidence 
in sexual assault investigations to facilitate prosecutions.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom