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Article: Legal Chemicals Being Used for Date Rape.(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- State Legislatures
- Article date:
- February 1, 2001
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2001 National Conference of State Legislatures. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Twenty states have passed laws to protect women from the effects of the date rape drug, GHB, but almost as soon as the statutes were signed, criminals found ways to use perfectly legal substitutes. These odorless, tasteless chemicals mix easily in drinks and render the victim unconscious. GHB also has cropped up on college campuses and at rave (all-night dance) parties.
To combat these GHB substitutes, legislators in Pennsylvania strengthened their "analogue" statutes by enlarging them to include chemicals that have "substantially similar structures or substantially similar effects."
A prior state law, one of the strongest date rape statutes in the ...