Officials, advocates say date rape drugging difficult to confirm, but an ongoing issue in Alaska

Content warning: The following story contains references to violence and sexual assault.

Date rape drugging, or roofying, is the use of any sedative, usually mixed with alcohol, to incapacitate a victim and facilitate a sexual assault. While anecdotal stories of suspected roofying circulate around Alaska, cases and culprits are difficult to confirm.

Alaska Chief Medical Officer Dr. Robert Lawrence said that’s partially due to the nature of the crime.

“Many of these medications actually their mechanism, tragically, is memory loss,” he said. “One of your neighbors will have been assaulted, and know that an assault has occurred, but have no memory of how or when or what led up to it, just because of the way that the substance itself works. So that’s the reality of the situation that we’re