What Would a War on Date Rape Drugs Look Like?

Today I found this article. In it, the police speak about their stepping up on stopping crime during the holidays. But one snippet of the article jumped out at me:

“Operation Saturate has already seen drug dealer Leighton Foster, 21, jailed after he was caught with a £7,000 stash of the date rape drug GHB.”

When do we ever hear about police busting a date rape drug ring? Never.  So it was great to hear on that level—that there’s now that much less GHB on the street, and potentially, fewer women being assaulted.

But then, I asked myself, what would the American War on Drugs look like if it were a war on date rape drugs?

I pretended it wouldn’t be racist and classist like this one is. The more I thought about it, the better it sounded—why aren’t drugs that are slipped into nonconsenting women and men’s drinks, in order to commit a crime that is harmful to that non consenting person, given more of a priority? If it were, would it be possible that we would have a more constructive dialogue on rape and sexual assault? Might our dialogue be more focused on questioning, blaming, and prosecuting the one doing the raping rather than the victim? Might the reporting of rapes go up, since police would ostensibly take rape more seriously? Might we even be able to educate the masses on acquaintance rape?

Things might be a lot different.