168 Flunitrazepam
sense of power in users while at the same time decreasing fear. Such effects
may promote violence in a person who is already prone to such conduct,
particularly when the substance is combined with alcohol.
Users are sometimes unable to remember what happened while they were
under flunitrazepam’s influence. Immediate effects aside, researchers have
documented that people still experience trouble when doing laboratory mem-
ory tests 10 hours after taking a medical dose of the drug, a dose that may be
much lighter than some abusers take. Many other benzodiazepine class drugs
cause memory trouble as well, although their effect is less publicized than
flunitrazepam’s.
Flunitrazepam can slow reaction times, reduce ability to pay attention to
tasks, and leave people too woozy and discoordinated to drive a car safely.
Difficulty in driving has been demonstrated in simulations and in an instru-
mented automobile actually driven for several miles the day after drivers took
a nighttime dose. In experiments (including a test of potential drug effects on
shift workers) people took various sleep aids at bedtime; flunitrazepam
harmed persons’ ability to move their limbs the next day. Such effects appear
to be dose-related; an experiment using much smaller doses found little or no
impact on performance the next day. Large doses can cause breathing trouble.
Injection can kill skin around the needle site.
Abuse factors.Abuse of the drug has become a concern among public health
authorities in several countries. Under provisions of international treaties the
federal government lists flunitrazepam as a Schedule IV controlled substance
but has forbidden sale of this pharmaceutical in the United States. State gov-
ernments have begun reclassifying the substance as Schedule I, certifying it
as having no medical value and allowing anyone possessing it to be prose-
cuted under state law.
In the 1990s law enforcement agencies declared flunitrazepam to be a date
rape drug, allowing men to commit sexual assault against unresisting victims
who have foggy or even no memory of the circumstances. In this regard the
drug is little different from alcohol, though faster acting. In a survey of 53
women who willingly used flunitrazepam, 10% said they were afterward as-
saulted physically or sexually. When 66 other “flunitrazepam users” described
the tablet, many descriptions were of some other drug even though the people
believed they had taken flunitrazepam. Untoward events may be real, but the
identity of an involved drug may be less certain than law enforcement officials
say. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) says detection of fluni-
trazepam is nearly impossible in rape cases because urine samples must be
analyzed within 72 hours of ingesting flunitrazepam, making the drug’s prev-
alence as a tool in sexual assault impossible to demonstrate. Nonetheless, the
DEA describes the problem’s extent as serious. A student of the topic found
that from 1994 to 1998 a nationwide total of “at least” 26 sexual assaults “po-
tentially involved” the drug. One laboratory conducted a two-year study of
1,179 urine specimens from sexual assault victims in 49 states, specimens se-
lected because of suspicion that some drug was involved—and thereby more
likely to have positive results than if samples were chosen randomly from sex
crime cases. The lab found 6 positive for flunitrazepam (0.5%), 97 (8%) positive
for a benzodiazepine class substance (a category including many drugs other