Drink Spiking

A drink can be out of your sight for only a moment, but that may be all it takes for someone to tamper with it. Spiking can happen in bars, restaurants, festivals, and even among people who already know and trust each other. It also goes far beyond alcohol. Drinks, food, vapes, cigarettes, and other substances can be altered without someone’s knowledge, leaving them vulnerable before they fully understand what is happening.

Dawn Dines has spent more than 20 years working to change how people understand and respond to spiking. She is the founder and CEO of Stamp Out Spiking, a UK charity focused on education, prevention, training, and better safeguarding practices. Her work has helped bring spiking into the public conversation and pushed for stronger laws, better training, and more support for people who have experienced it.

Dawn talks about the experiences that led her into this work and what she has learned from victims over the years. She explains some of the signs that a person may have been spiked, why it can be so difficult to know exactly what happened, and what friends or staff can do when someone suddenly seems far more intoxicated than they should be. She also shares practical ways people can look out for each other while still going out and enjoying themselves.

Show Notes:

• [00:44] Dawn Dines shares how her 20-year campaign against spiking helped push for changes to UK law.
• [02:18] Spiking can involve drinks, food, vapes, cigarettes, and even needles, not just alcoholic beverages.
• [04:27] Dawn recalls two frightening experiences while traveling that showed her how easily someone could be drugged without their knowledge.
• [07:32] She explains why she continued campaigning despite years of resistance and how public pressure helped bring greater attention to the issue.
• [10:41] Spiking affects both men and women, and Dawn describes how widespread the problem has become around the world.
• [13:37] Victims may struggle to understand what happened, especially when friends or family assume they simply drank too much.
• [16:35] Dawn explains how quickly symptoms can develop and why getting to a trusted person immediately can make a difference.
• [19:54] Education can help hospitality workers, security teams, and the public recognize when someone’s behavior changes suddenly.
• [23:06] Victim blaming, embarrassment, and memory loss are among the reasons many incidents are never reported.
• [26:58] Bars and restaurants can reduce risk through staff training, drink covers, safety information, and clear procedures for helping customers.
• [28:41] Dawn discusses the growing awareness of spiking and why cooperation across countries, venues, and law enforcement matters.
• [31:48] Witnesses, security footage, recovered substances, and quick reporting can all help investigators build a case.
• [34:18] Dawn encourages people to stay vigilant and look out for one another without allowing the threat of spiking to stop them from enjoying their lives.

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Transcript:

Dawn, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today.

Thank you so much for inviting me.

You're welcome. Can you give myself and the audience a little bit of background about who you are and what you do?

Yes, thank you. I'm Dawn Dines, the CEO and founder of Stamp Out Spiking, and I've been on a mission for over two decades now to try and make drink spiking and all other spiking-related crimes to be a specific criminal offense, which after 20 years of campaigning, I'm very proud to announce that we've got the law of the land changed. In the UK now, spiking is regarded as a specific criminal offense.

It was sort of antiquated legislation written in 1861 that needed to be updated to modern day, the way that these crimes are now taking place because as we know, as things evolve, people evolve, crimes evolve. So it really needed to be updated so we could show the prevalence of these crimes, how they're taking place and, you know, what people need to do to safeguard themselves.

Gotcha. Can you, for the audience who isn't familiar with the term spiking, can you explain what that is, and why you got into this 20 years ago?

Yes. Great question, Chris. Spiking is when somebody puts something into your system, basically, without your consent or knowledge. Now that many years ago just really used to be drink spiking. But about four or five years ago, across the UK, we had a spate of needle spikings where people were jabbing people with needles. Since then, we've been sharing how we've heard vapes are now being spiked. It's so easy to get them on the dark web.

We also know that can happen through cigarettes, through food. Yes, even something now called the Devil's Breath, which is like a powder that you can basically blow into somebody's face now has the same effect. That was all from a drug baroness over in Colombia, I believe, how all that started. That's mainly what spiking is. It's somebody doing something to you and leaving you in a vulnerable position so that they can take advantage of you in some way.

Gotcha. And how did you get into this field?

So back in 1989, probably before most of your listeners were born, I was on a round-the-world trip, and I was over in Australia. Some guy kept trying to take me out for a drink, and after a few months, I kept sort of saying, “No, no, I've got a feller at home.” He was like, “Oh, I'll tell you what, then why don't we just go out as friends and we'll go for a meal?” I was like, “Yeah, absolutely fine.”

We went to the restaurant, we ordered some drinks. I went to use the bathroom and I'd forgotten my handbag. I came back to the table to get my bag and his hand was, like, hovering over my drink and it moved really quick. And all the hairs on the back of my neck went up. I grabbed my bag and I thought, “He's done something to my drink.” In my wisdom, I was going to be silly and go back and try and do a little James Bond thing and swap the drinks and thought, “No, don't be ridiculous.”

I climbed out of this little tiny window in the bathroom that I could hardly fit through, and I ran for my life. And do you know what? That guy never came back to see me. So my suspicions were confirmed by his absence. I always say to people that you've got your head, your heart, and your gut, and that gut feeling, you should always rely on it because it's there for a reason. That was my first insight to how spiking could take place.

Then a few years later, a friend and I were living and working in Mexico. And this was at a restaurant at lunchtime and a tray of drinks got sent over to us, like some cocktails. We took these drinks, and to be honest with you, Chris, we both felt like a pair of film stars. The first time being quite young and a tray of drinks gets sent over and this group of guys were, like, waving to us and we were, like, quite excited.

And then I just caught a look that one of the guys gave to the waiter and he was, like, showing his peripheral vision down some steps. And again, all the hairs on the back of my neck went up. We'd drunk most of these cocktails. I said to my friend, “Right, we're off.” I threw some money down. She said, “We haven't had lunch yet.” And I was like, “No.” Got in a taxi, went back to our apartment, and as we were walking up the steps, our legs were getting really, really heavy, and we got into our apartment and we were out cold for over 30 hours.

Whatever drugs they'd put in our system, number one, they could have killed us. Number two, you know, you hear about all the dreadful things that are happening in the world. What they had planned for us, we will never know, thank God. And it sort of led me then to when I finished sort of traveling around the world, I came back to the UK and I started finding out that it happened to my friends. Now I'm getting on a bit and it's happening to my friends’ children.

Along this journey, there's been plenty of occasions where I thought, “Oh, I can't do this anymore because it's such hard work, like trying to educate people on something that nobody wants to talk about is really difficult. I designed a product to try and help stop it. I put that all around the country and I carried on campaigning for about 17, 18 years. And then about three or four years ago in the UK, we had something called a girls’ night in and women all across the UK stayed in for one night, one night only.

But do you know what? That bought on the hospitality industry lost so much money, probably hundreds of thousands of pounds, like, over a period of time where every major city ran this girls’ night in. I'd love to say it's all my hard work; they got the law changed. But for sure, that girls’ night in really helped. And then guys started to get involved, because of course, we always think that these crimes just happened to females, but that's not true.

This happens to men and boys, probably 60/40, I would say, from the testimonials that we receive from victims and survivors of these crimes, all their families that contact me. It sort of inspired me to carry on. And then I got called as the expert witness of the Home Affairs Committee, where I gave evidence. And then to be honest with you, Chris, my feet haven't touched the floor. I've been, like, flying everywhere. I've been over to the States as well.

I met with your Senator, Paul Feeney in Massachusetts, and I shared our advice, and I gave evidence at one of your, don't know quite what it's called, it's not like Home Affairs Committee, but it was evidence on a case so that they could make spiking into a more specific criminal offense. And I know across the states now, it started in California. And I believe in a few states now, they're making it compulsory that you either offer drink covers or testing kits, so that we're going to start safeguarding the customers.

Gotcha. It's probably a really hard question to answer: How prevalent or how widespread is this problem?

It is absolutely huge. It really is. And from when I started this, you know, I knew about guys and girls getting spiked in pubs and clubs. I didn't realize the true extent. The more that somebody said to me the other day, “God, don't want you to open up a can of worms.” I was like, “Well, it's a can of worms that obviously needed to be opened.” Now we're seeing domestic spiking cases like Gisele Pelicot in France, where he was inviting men to come in.

He was sedating his wife, and getting men to come in and rape her and filming. Now we're finding out about these cases in the UK. It's global, like it really is. It's where we have people contact us from Botswana, from Israel, from New Zealand, Australia, Canada, like, just everywhere, France, Spain, Germany. It's just…it’s absolutely, well, it's frightening. But it's now, I feel that something has been done.

Whereas before, it was, like, invisible crimes. And I went on to the Dragons’ Den years ago with my little pitch, equivalent to your Shark Tank. And they were, like, “What are you talking about?” And I felt like, do you know what? There's one thing, but when nobody's agreeing with you, and you start believing in the end that, “Am I right about this,” but one thing that you can't deny is that all the victims that I've spoken to after all of these years.

I remember one little girl in a nightclub in Torquay, and she said to me—that’s in south of the UK. And I gave her one of these stop tops of protective drink covers. And she was like, “What's this for?” And I was like, “Oh, it's to cover your drink, just to make it more difficult for an opportunist just to be able to slip something into your drink.” And she was like, “Oh, my god. Do you believe me? Do you believe me?”

She cried and cried in my arms. And do you know what? That little girl, she'd gone home and her boyfriend, well fiancé, and her mum and dad didn't believe her. And they accused her of having too much to drink and going off with this guy. He'd actually spiked her and raped her.

I remember grabbing her little face and saying to her,”Do you know what? I'm going to make everybody believe you one day, I am, you watch me. I am going to make people believe you. I just hope that she sat there with her family now going, “Yes, she did it.” I hope she didn't marry that guy who didn't believe her, right?

I'm trying to figure out a phrase question. Is there a real question in terms of even people trusting themselves of, “Did someone spike my drink? Did I just drink too much?” And how would you even know afterwards if your beverage was spiked?

This is when I go and do my training courses. I've got accredited training courses on spiking issues now. And honestly, Chris, when I look at people, you can literally see the penny drop. They're like, and I've probably taken them back maybe 20 years, 25 years, could have been five months, but they're like, “Oh, my God. That's what happened to me.” By us educating people, showing them the typical signs and symptoms, what happens to somebody, how you present showing videos of what people look like when this crime has affected them.

For any of your listeners out there, if they want to, any of our educational resources, they can always get hold of us at Stamp Out Spiking. We’ve got digital assets that can go up at festivals to say, like, “Keep an eye on your drink. Keep an eye on your friends.” We've got the training, we've got resources, drink covers, there's night caps and spikes and stop tops. There's a multitude now of resources that people can actually try and help to safeguard themselves.

But as for the, “Was I spiked?” the testing kits only test for a few drugs that are used in these incidents. It's really difficult. And because now we’ve got all the synthetic drugs coming through, it's virtually impossible to test for every drug. One thing that we're always quite nervous about is that if the testing can only test for a few drugs, and somebody gets their drink tested, and then they think it's fine, and they drink it, that could leave them in a more vulnerable position. We're always a bit nervous of that. But of course, you can go along to your doctor, go to the hospital, contact the police. I don't know if it's the same in the States, but in England, they won't normally test you unless the police have sort of instructed them to.

Yeah, I think that's pretty much the same here.

Yeah, it's a bit of a gray area, because the date rape drugs come out of your system so quickly. We are speaking to some toxicologists, I have been for many years now, to see if there's something that we could possibly offer to the general public. I've got parents who come to me and say that they were sort of refused a drug test, because it's expensive.

Let's talk about the real issue. Why? It's because it's down to money. But some parents are saying to me, “Look, I just want to know what drugs have been put into my little girl or their son.” I think something needs to be done on that for sure, because it's something that people worry about and they want to know what's happened to them, why they were in that state.

And the more that we can educate people by coming on Easy Prey and by sharing this vital information, we can be helping people so that if you see something untoward, maybe you can jump in and you can mess up the perpetrator's little plan and get that person to a place of safety. That's my main aim.

You talked about the narcotics, the drugs being metabolized pretty quickly and kind of coming out of the system quickly. How quickly do these drugs take effect and what you talked about that there's signs that you might see of either in your friends or yourself that something's been into your drink?

Well, if you're out and about and everyone assumes, when we talk about covering drinks and that, they're like, “Oh, I don't even drink alcohol.” I'm like, “No, you can spike a glass of water or a cup of tea.” So it doesn't naturally have to be alcohol. If you are out and you get blurred vision, I would say that's probably the first telltale sign. Most victims that I've spoken to said their vision went really blurred. They start to feel really drunk really quickly.

Lots of people actually wet themselves or violently sick because that poison just wants to come right out of your system. If you are out and about and you do start to feel any of those symptoms that we've just discussed, you've probably got between 20 seconds to a minute to get to somebody to say to them, “I've been spiked. Keep me safe.”

A trusted member of staff, security, friends, ringing people up, getting an emergency, ice on your phone, whatever it may be so that you can get your location sent to somebody. And because you lose control, really, of your bodily function, probably the first place you're going to head for is a bathroom. You need somebody to know where you're going and what's happening so that you can share that vital information because that's what's going to basically keep you safe.

You talk about 20 seconds to a minute once you feel things coming on. How long from the time that someone drinks the beverage until that effect happens, is it seconds, minutes?

No, probably about 20 minutes. But it would all depend on how much they put into your system, your size, how much you've had to eat, what you've had to drink. There isn't an exact number, but probably around 20 minutes, I would say, until that drug is ingested. And again, it depends if it's been put in a vape or in a drink or fire injection.

Do you know something that is really frightening is that I've been studying the Epstein files. And when we've looked at that, there was a code word apparently for, “Oh, they look dehydrated. Give them some Fiji water.” And from what we're reading in those reports, it looks like they were spiked to two, along with Bill Cosby that you obviously had that was spiking. And then globally, this is just blown up. It really has.

The reports that I receive are just the most upsetting, horrid reports. And I think sometimes when I'm about to give up, Chris, because it's been a hard slog trying to do this, it really has, that’s when I go back to some of these horrible tales and I think, “Oh, I can't give up now.” What about that dear little chap that told me how he'd been spiked and raped? And we've got the most prolific male rapist in history over here in Manchester and he raped over 200 men.

In the morning, you saw these guys shaking this guy's hand. They had no clue that he had put Rohypnol in their drink and spiked them, raped them, filmed them. We need the public to be educated on this alongside hospitality, security, our emergency services, so that people can be treated correctly. We can try and start gaining some samples so that we can start gaining convictions.

That would be absolutely wonderful. I think then we're really going to start to see zero tolerance on any spiking issues. Hopefully, if somebody got caught spiking someone in a festival, they'd get banned so they couldn't go to festivals. If they abused their position of power, they would get extra sentencing because they abused their position to be able to drug somebody and supervise them to take advantage.

Is some of the reason why it doesn't get reported a lot, I suppose, because people just don't know if they've been drugged? Is it also just because there has been so much kind of disbelief in, “Well, we just don't believe you. You're just making an excuse,” that sort of victim blaming?

Yeah, I think from over in the UK, we've done a big survey called The Victim's Journey. And we asked hundreds and hundreds of people if they've been spiked. What happened along that journey? Quite a few people said they weren't believed. They were accused of having too much to drink. Some people didn't know what to do. A lot of people were embarrassed and ashamed because you actually feel guilty yourself of this crime because when you go out, you have too much to drink. I don't know. Do you drink alcohol, Chris?

I don't. I very, very seldom do so.

OK, so for any of the listeners out there that do like to go out and party and partake in a few drinks, sometimes you get that little blank moment where you're like, “Did we pop in The Rose & Crown last night?” And you just can't remember just for maybe a few minutes. But I think that maybe the perpetrators are playing on that. Instead of a few minutes with these drugs, that could be five hours that's gone out of your time.

Then why are people doing this? I keep trying to delve into why would somebody wants to do this to another person? And obviously, sexual assault, rape, we've got bribery, robbery. There's a multitude of reasons why people are going to be doing these crimes. I think as long as we can all be vigilant, we get that vital training shared across emergency services, hospitality, security, then I think we're equipping people with the knowledge so that they can make a call and go, “Hold on a minute. That girl just walked in here 20 minutes ago. She was walking absolutely fine, and now some people have got her under their arms. She can't walk.” Somebody needs to be questioning that.

Yes. This person came in totally lucid, not intoxicated. They only had one drink, and now it looks like they've had 10.

Yeah. So that needs to be questioned. People need to see the videos of what people look like and how they present so that we can really make a difference. I've kindly been sponsored by Bauer Media across the UK, and we've had two national campaigns now where we've warned hundreds and thousands of people, and one of them was a lovely cocktail glass that had an olive in it, like a martini glass.

In a shopping mall, if you were walking towards it, it would say, “If only,” and then suddenly as you got closer, all shards of glass would come out of the handle and all spikes would come out of the glass. It would then say, “If only a spiked drink looked like this.” And then our next campaign was, “Keep an eye out.” It's like an eye on top of a glass, and it's like, “Keep an eye on your friends. Keep an eye on your drink.” We're just trying to share some of our national campaigns so that people are aware that these crimes are taking place.

Is there any support to safety in numbers that always make sure when you're going out, you've got your friends with you, and all the women don't go to the restroom at the same time, that sort of thing?

We call it somebody on shark watch. You go out, somebody stays sober, one person would drive people home, and so if we've got somebody like that, then that's brilliant because then people are going to keep an eye on you so you can literally party, have fun, and you've got someone there keeping an eye. There's so many different apps now that are out there that can also work to keep you safe, and Stamp Out Spiking are in the middle of making a safety app as well, so hopefully that could be something we can share with your listeners at a later date.

I suppose things like if you're the designated person who's going to be sober, you're drinking from a water bottle, always make sure to put the top back on your water bottle as soon as you've taken a sip.

Yeah, definitely. Never leave your drinks unattended. If somebody offers to buy you a drink, go to the bar with them, watch it being poured. Just take away that danger element where somebody can do something untoward to you, really. Obviously, sharing anything these days, you have to be careful. If somebody comes up and offers you a cigarette, then just beware, sharing vapes, because they've got all these different flavors now.

It's so easy to go, “Oh, do you want to try my blueberry and peach one?” And boom, they've got you. Just be a bit vigilant. Just make sure. I think one thing that I really want to share as well, when we're talking about covering your drinks, is spiking doesn't just happen from strangers. It happens in friendship groups too. When I take my drink to the bathroom, and people are like, “Oh my God, it's really unhygienic.” And I'm like, “Oh, it's a lot better than the ulterior, possibly, motive that could happen.”

In the UK, we've got a smoking ban, I'm sure you do in quite most of the States now. And if you're a smoker, you're not really allowed to take your drink outside. I remember in one club, the guy saying, “Oh don't, everybody puts their drinks on this shelf here, and then they go out for a cigarette. I'm sure, because we can't stand and watch it. We're security.” He said, “I'm sure that that's where the drinks are getting spiked.” He said, “What can we do?” I was like, “Take the shelf away.” He was like, “Yeah, good idea.”

There's things that we can all do to help each other. And as long as we've got some people who are caring, and I always say to people when I do my training, “Now let's think if this is your husband or your wife or your son or your daughter or your grandson, your granddaughter.” And then suddenly they're like, “Yeah, let's think that way.”

And when I didn't get investment by the Dragons, my partners in America who sell the nightcap, they also sell our stop tops in America now, they did get investment from the Shark Tank. That helped them with their business. I've had to work 18 years of running around the country going, “This is happening. This is happening.” Thank goodness over in the States, I think it was Lori who invested. Thank goodness that they got investment so that they are now being able to share all of these safety messages.

You talked about the bar taking out the shelf. Are there other things that venues, restaurants, and bars can do to reduce the risk? Or if something happens, be in a better position to provide evidence?

They could take training. If there's any bars over there that want any training, we can offer some online training courses for all the bar staff. You can put the drink covers in the bars. You've got resources there. We always think it's great to have posters in the bathrooms because everybody's got to go to the bathroom. In England, we got something called Ask for Angela. I believe it's like an angel shop in the US.

Having the Ask for Angela posters, just so if somebody's on a date and it's not going right, or you feel a little bit unsafe, I probably wouldn't recommend Ask for Angela if you knew you'd been spiked because if they didn't know, you need to just say, “I've been spiked. Take care of me,” because that's an urgent message. But if you're out on a date and you're not feeling comfortable or something's happened, then you've got that code word to go to the bar. Hopefully, this should take you to a place of safety.

Is some of, maybe, the lack of reporting or the lack of people going to staff, the social aspect of, “I don't want to be that person,” or, “I don't want to be someone who seems to be like, “I'm just trying to get out of here.”

Well, I think a few years ago, that would have probably been the issue. But I think now after I've been on Good Morning Britain and Crimewatch and practically every radio station, the BBC, have been on ITV, we've done documentaries, we've got the law changed. I'm just hoping now on a global scale, there's more Dawns in different countries that go, “Do you know what? We've had enough of this as well.” So again, any listeners out there that want to help on this mission from the US, from the UK, anywhere across the globe, please get in contact with us. Because we're here to share our intel, work collaboratively so that we can safeguard as many men and women across the globe against these invisible crimes.

Perfect. I think that is the perfect time for me to say if people want to get a hold of you, where can they best reach out to you and your organization?

They can reach out to us at stampoutspiking.org. That is our website. If they want any drink protectors, we've got the stoptopps.com, there's nightcapit.com, there's different places around the world. Spikey's is another one for the bottle. There's different people across the world. In the UK, we have police reporting online now, so that's fantastic. It's going to be made into a specific criminal offense.

I think once that actual law is put into play, which should be by the end of this year, then I think we're going to start seeing more convictions, more people that are sharing because venues is quite a difficult one, Chris, because you don't want people to think that spiking happens in your venue. One thing I never do is name and shame any venues because that person might have worked for 30 years to build this business, and if they've got customers coming in spiking other customers, it's not actually their fault.

I think by training their staff, by putting up signage, by maybe if they've got digital assets, just having a little thing on the telly saying, “Keep an eye on your drink,” just so people go, “Oh yeah, I'll take my drink with me.” It's just reminding people to be vigilant and to really make sure that they're looking out. One other thing is, if anybody sees anybody doing something to somebody else's drink, please tell the bar staff, please tell the security. Don't just think, “Oh, something didn't look quite right over there.” I think it's great if we can all start being a bit more helpful to each other and share this information.

With respect to lawsuits that you're aware of, does it usually come back to just people telling their story, or is it blood test works, or is it CCTV evidence? What are some of the aspects that help these cases get prosecuted? It's a mixture.

We had one person where the bar staff saw them spiking a drink. The security then went over. The guy ran away. They gave a description. The police caught him, and then he went to get sentencing. Now, that particular case was about four years ago, and he got a slap on the wrist, which is terrible. I should hope now things would change a lot more.

We've got another guy who was a Michelin star restaurant owner. He owned a few restaurants, and he got caught in a members-only club in Mayfair in London, sticking some GBL or GBH into his friend's drink. They caught her coming up the stairs and told her what happened. She was like, “No, no, no, no. He wouldn't do that to me.” Then I think the guy realized that he'd been rumbled, so he went to the toilet and hid the vial of GBL in the toilet system. The police came, went to the toilet, found that vial of GBL, went back to his house, found a big pot of it.

Then now, he is apparently still under arrest, and we're waiting to hear the sentencing on that case. The domestic spiking cases that we've got going on now across the UK, absolutely dreadful. Women finding out that their husbands have been spiking, sedating, giving advice to others on online groups. Our national crime agency have just hit upon that. We're going to be seeing more of that in the coming months.

As we wrap up here, any parting advice for people that we haven't already mentioned?

When I speak to people who've been affected by these crimes, they say to me, “Oh, I don't want to go out anymore.” I'm like, “Oh, please don't let them win. Don't change your lifestyle. There's things we can do now. There's things you can do to protect yourself.” I just hope that for anybody who's been affected by these crimes, if you want to get hold of us, my door is always open.

The more I learn about how these crimes are taking place, the more I can put that into my training courses to warn people how it's happening. I think just be vigilant. Go out and party. Have a good time. We've only got one life to lead here. Let's make it a good one. On that note, I was up till 5 o'clock this morning watching England beat Mexico in the World Cup. Very excited about that.

Yeah, just stay safe, but please don't change your lifestyle because then these horrible perpetrators have won and that is what we don't want. We want a world. I suppose I'm the only girl who's got on a business plan that she wants to shut her business down sooner rather than later because the more that we educate people, the more the perpetrators are going to realize they can't get away with these crimes.

I love it. That's a great perspective to have on it. Dawn, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today.

Oh, lovely. Thanks for having me, Chris.