On Friday, June 17, Leah woke up alone in bed, disoriented and terrified.
The night before, she and two close friends had gone to a bar in the Pointe-Saint-Charles neighborhood of Montreal. He says his last memory was receiving his third cup. After that, everything turned black.
She is grateful that her friends took her home safely, but says she was distressed when she woke up, remembering little from the night before.
“She was dismayed. She was angry and wanted answers,” he said.
Lea is not his real name. CBC News is protecting its identity because it fears retaliation for public speaking. She is one of the two women who make public what happened to them, hoping it will lead to systemic change.
Lea, 27, is confident she was drugged. He went to the hospital emergency room, but left, realizing that the wait would be so long that any medication could be removed from his system when he saw a doctor.
Testing for gamma hydroxybutyrate, or GHB, a drug commonly used for drinking, can be a race against time.
GHB can only be detected in the blood for six hours and in the urine for up to 12 hours, according to the Quebec Ministry of Health.
After leaving the emergency room, he went to an emergency clinic, but was told he should make an appointment, and the soonest available was at least a week later.
He called a friend who knew about Quebec’s health care system and told her to go to CLSC Metro, one of Quebec’s designated locations that offers medical and social care to victims of sexual assault.
Despite arriving within the required 12-hour GHB test at the CLSC subway, Lea says she was told she could not be tested for toxicology because she had not been sexually assaulted.
“I was devastated. I wanted an answer, just to validate my experience,” he said.
“He was very upset that he could not have this proof. And there was no way that the perpetrator, who committed this crime, would ever be caught.”
On Monday, he filed a complaint with Montreal police.
Not all hospitals can test
In a statement, the Quebec Ministry of Health said that testing for GHB is a challenge because of the tight window and also because only specialized laboratories are able to process the tests.
Currently, not all hospitals can offer tests. Earlier this month, the Quebec National Assembly passed a motion calling for tests to be offered to all hospitals.
In a statement, the Ministry of Health said that anyone who believes they have ingested a drink with spikes should be able to go to an emergency room and get tested. He said the government is working on a plan to ensure that widespread evidence is available.
But a ministry spokesman did not say whether the current official protocol dictates that a victim must have been sexually assaulted before being tested for toxicology.
The provincial sexual assault response guide, shared with CBC News, mentions drug testing, but only in the context of sexual assault. It does not include a protocol for testing victims for possible drugs if they have not been sexually assaulted.
“It is in the best interest of the victim to have access to this evidence if he or she wishes, and it should not be a luxury to have it,” said Marie-Christine Villeneuve, a spokeswoman for Crime Victim Assistance Centers.
“We can see that it’s a problem in some areas, in some places, and it shouldn’t be.”
There is no test capacity in the hospital
Lea is the second woman in Montreal in a month who has publicly spoken out that she has been denied access to a drug test.
In late May, musician Ariane Brunet, 31, went to a concert with close friends. She describes having a beer, then once, with friends. She doesn’t remember what happened after that.
He says his friends noticed that he was behaving strangely. At one point, his friends told him, he could not get up from the ground.
Ariane Brunet, 31, said that after fainting after drinking twice, she was taken to Verdun Hospital in Montreal, but was told there was no evidence to confirm she had been. drugged. (Dave St-Amant / CBC)
Her friend called an ambulance, which took Brunet to Verdun Hospital. When he regained consciousness at 4:30 a.m., he requested a toxicological examination to determine if he had been drugged.
He said the doctor told him they were not offering the test and that no other Montreal medical institution would do the same. She is still being persecuted for not knowing for sure what happened.
“What happened to me? I just needed proof of what happened, only to recover,” said Brunet, who later filed a police complaint.
In a statement, the regional health authority overseeing Verdun Hospital said it could not comment on Brunet’s specific case and could not say why it was not referred to another medical center offering the test. toxicological.
Brunet shared his story on social media, prompting public discussion, which led the National Assembly to adopt the motion to give probation to all Quebec hospitals.
GHB in circulation
What is the prevalence of drinking in Quebec? It is difficult to measure, but there are some indications that the practice may be on the rise.
In recent months, women from Trois-Rivières, Gatineau, Sherbrooke, Montreal and Rimouski have spoken to the media about experiences with chopped drinks.
The Ministry of Health said it is working on a plan to make GHB testing available in all Quebec hospitals. (Shutterstock / Oleksandra Naumenko)
In April, Montreal police confiscated 100 gallons of GHB and arrested four people in connection with raids on clandestine laboratories. At the same time, the Longueuil police confiscated 375 liters of GHB, which according to police accounted for about 75,000 doses.
GHB is a drug that can cause extreme drowsiness, impaired movement and speech, as well as blackouts and memory lapses.
Drinks can be supplied with several different drugs: GHB, MDMA and ketamine among them. Experts also say that alcohol is still the most widely used substance in sexual assault facilitated by drugs and that the phenomenon of excess alcohol is very little reported.
Giving a drug to anyone without their consent is a crime, described in the Penal Code as the administration of a harmful substance.
Lea wrote to her MNA, Greg Kelley, saying her experience “reveals a major public health and safety issue” and calling for toxicology testing to be widely available.
Kelley spoke to Lea on Wednesday and said she plans to raise the issue with the regional health council and responsible ministers.
“I just want to see how I can help,” he told CBC News. “His experience is heartbreaking in many ways.”
Last April in Quebec, only 18 people have been charged with administering a harmful substance since 2010. However, a spokesman for the provincial prosecutor’s office said that sometimes the Crown will choose to charge people accused of abusing alcohol with other crimes, such as assault.
In a statement, Montreal police urge all victims to come forward, even if they have no definitive evidence that they have been drugged or know who was responsible.