Proactive drugs in DFSA cases: Toxicological findings in an eight-years study

In case of drug-facilitated sexual assault (DFSA), the evidence is frequently anecdotal, with fewinvestigations based on scientific evidences being carried out and thus most cases are diagnosed as anacute drug or alcohol intoxication. The reason may lay in the lack of specific knowledge by the victim onthe possibility to retrospectively study the allegedly events and to the absence of standardized and sharedprotocols among health, forensic and police subjects. On this basis, in 2015 the Unit of Forensic Toxicologyof University of Florence and the Sexual Assaults Centre in Hospital Careggi have fixed a common protocolto be applied in case of DFSA. The purpose of the study was to describe the results of the application of theshared protocol for toxicological findings among women seeking health care after sexual assault, and toassess the relationship with so-called proactive DFSA drugs. We conducted a study on female patientsabove 18 years of age consulting the Sexual Assault Centre between 2010 and July 2018. Among the 256patients included, 37 . 1% was positive at least for a substance. Alcohol was the most detected substance(57 cases), followed by Cannabis (19 cases), cocaine (15 cases) and opiates/methadone (heroine: 5;morphine:1; methadone: 6); benzodiazepines and amphetamine were found in 13 and in 2 cases,respectively. Only case of gamma-hydroxybutyrate (GHB) consumption was observed while newpsychoactive substances were not detected. Among the patients suspecting proactive DFSA, sedativedrug findings, not explained by voluntary intake, were encountered.