Rash of drink-spiking incidents in downtown Halifax on police radar

HALIFAX — The last thing she remembers is buying a drink. Hours later, she was found unconscious, alone on a dark sidewalk.

The 19-year-old has spent weeks trying to piece together what happened after a night out with friends, another suspected case of drinking tampering in downtown Halifax.

As the university town readies for an influx of students this fall, police are grappling with how to respond to a rash of drink-spiking incidents.

The Nova Scotia chiefs of police drug committee, which includes officials from the Department of Justice, the medical examiner’s office, the public prosecution service, police, EHS and fire, has added the issue to its agenda at an upcoming meeting on Aug. 16.

Halifax RCMP Chief Supt. Lee Bergerman says a closer look is warranted even if it’s premature to call it a trend. “I think it’s a topic that we should at least discuss,” she says. “I do think that drug and drink tampering is underreported. I think it happens probably a lot more and people mistake it for being grossly intoxicated.”

The 19-year-old woman, who spoke on condition of anonymity, says a rough timeline of the Saturday night in midJuly has emerged after talking with friends. But there are still significant gaps, leaving her feeling anxious and scared about what may have occurred.

“I didn’t feel like I got raped or assaulted,” says the university student. “But I just keep thinking about people’s intentions when they drug you.”

She was woken up by her mother at 4 p.m. the next day. She couldn’t remember how she got home.

“I didn’t wake up the entire day, which is very unlike me,” she says. “I purposely didn’t drink a lot the night before because I knew I had to work, but I couldn’t remember anything.”

Things got stranger when she checked her phone and noticed six missed calls from an unknown number. She texted back.

“He told me that him and a friend had found me completely unconscious on the sidewalk outside of Durty Nellys bar at 6:30 a.m.,” she says. “I had absolutely no recollection of anything this guy was telling me.”

Theday after her night out, the woman went to work, but says she felt increasingly nauseous and “spacey.”

“I went to the bathroom and that’s when I just couldn’t stop throwing up. That’s when I realized I must have been drugged.”

The 19-year-old says she did not report the incident to police. But an RCMP crime analyst is encouraging people who suspect they have been drugged to report it to police. Sheila Serfas says police can’t investigate something if it’s not reported.

“You can’t track what you don’t know,” she says. “We can’t target enforcement based on anecdotal information that is not reported to the police.”