This is how dangerous knockout drops are
In beer tents, after Rammstein concerts, at a graduation party, with the police and even at the BND: knockout drops are more present in the news than ever before, hardly a week goes by without headlines that leave people stunned.
Although it has already been filmed in 2021, the new Dresden "Tatort" comes at just the right time thematically: in "Was ihr nicht seht", a serial offender enters the homes of his victims, spikes the unsuspecting women's drinks with knockout drops and later rapes them. Because the high doses of narcotics lead to memory loss, the women can hardly remember anything afterwards. It is only after several deaths that the police track down the perpetrator and uncover the unimaginable dimensions of the rapes.
"Women who are victims of assaults under the influence of knockout drugs have hardly any chance of prosecution," says director Lena Stahl. "The evidence is often thin on the ground and court proceedings are difficult. The Bundestag only reformed criminal procedure law in 2019. This should make it easier for victims to testify and for evidence to be taken, at least as a first step." Despite this, just 21 cases were prosecuted in Berlin last year.
A maximum of twelve hours of evidence
One of the reasons for this is the short detection time of the substances: "It takes around six hours in blood and twelve hours in urine," says Céline Sturm from the victim protection organization Weißer Ring. Because crimes are usually reported with a delay - if at all - an investigation is then extremely difficult. Added to this is the large number of possible narcotics, because not all knockout drops are the same: "We understand this to mean many different substances, sometimes up to 200," says Sturm. These include ketamine, an anesthetic used in veterinary medicine, and GHB (gamma-hydroxybutyric acid), colloquially known as liquid ecstasy. They are also voluntarily used in small doses as party drugs in clubs.
Many of these substances are in fact freely available in Germany. Others are prescription drugs, some of which fall under the Narcotics Act. But not all of them. For example, GHB, which is produced from gamma-butyrolactone (GBL) and 1,4-butanediol (BDO), industrial chemicals that are produced, traded and industrially processed in large quantities. Both are not covered by the Narcotics Act.
Easy to obtain, hard to prosecute, devastating in their effects: knockout drops are a serious problem for society as a whole. "As filmmakers, we have often talked at the Film Academy about how important our voice is as a mirror of reality," says director Stahl about her motivation to make a film on the subject. "We cannot and must not close our eyes to tough issues in a society. In this respect, I hope that our film can make a small contribution to not ignoring the victims."
In the gripping ARD TV series "Shadow Games", a notorious criminal uses knockout drops to commit a string of violent crimes at a popular TV show's crime scene. The thriller highlights the challenge of prosecuting such cases due to the short detection time of the drugs, mirroring real-life difficulties discussed in the article.
After watching the harrowing crime drama "Eyes Closed", a viewer might be surprised to find out that similar instances of drug-facilitated sexual assault and the ensuing legal complexities are not just fictional, but are a sobering reality on German streets and TV headlines.
Source: www.ntv.de
