22nd October 2021
Young Scots call for change through petitions and the boycott of nightclubs, following multiple allegations of women being ‘spiked by injection’.
Many young people in Scotland are advocating for improved safety measures to be introduced in nightclubs, amid several claims of women being unsuspectingly injected with an unknown substance that is causing disorientation and illness. Numerous allegations of women being spiked by injection on nights out have been made on social media over the last week.
Women have been posting pictures of seeming puncture wounds that they have discovered after a night out, alongside stories of feeling disorientated and not being able to remember details from their night.
A 19 year old student, now living in Glasgow, believes she was spiked by injection in the early hours of Friday in Sauchiehall Street. She asked to remain anonymous. After falling ill, she noticed what appeared to be a puncture wound on her back. Speaking exclusively to us, she said: “I can’t remember anything from 12.30AM to 4AM and the parts that I can remember, I couldn’t see anything and felt like I was out of my body, floating.”
She also added that she felt dismissed by hospital staff. She said: “They weren’t very welcoming. They had never heard of spiking via injection before and didn’t really know what to do.”
She added: “I am worried that going out will make my anxiety worse. I would like to see people being searched on the way into nightclubs. We just don’t know how to protect ourselves, as it was an injection, how do we stop that?”
In response to her post and others, a petition has been created calling for mandatory searches on arrival to nightclubs to prevent harmful weapons from entering. The petition has already gained over 145,000 signatures and will now be debated in parliament.
Hannah Thomson, 24 from Motherwell, created the petition on the 14th October following the outcry on social media. She said: “When I started the petition, I had only heard of two cases of spiking through injection, now I have heard of many more. I was originally hoping for 10,000 signatures but the response has been so much bigger than I thought. I knew people were going to get behind this but I didn’t think I had the platform to reach that many people.”
“The petition is to make it mandatory for searches to be conducted on the way into a nightclub to prevent harmful weapons. Ideally, there would be hand held metal detectors. Now we are hearing of needles, not only is there the risk of date rape drugs or muscle relaxants being injected into you, dirty needles are being used and unfortunately that means there is a risk of hepatitis B and HIV. Searches happen at gigs and festivals, why can’t it happen at nightclubs?”
In a demonstration calling for tighter security measures, students across the UK are planning to boycott nightclubs on the 28th of October. The plan was originally devised by the ‘Girls Night In’ movement, which was initially established by three university students from Edinburgh. Milly Seaford, 21, one of the original founders of Girls Night In said: “Girls Night In is a planned boycott, raising awareness of increased incidents of spiking and the rise of using injections to carry out spiking. We believe clubs can provide more training to recognise dangerous behaviour and clubs could be a safer environment for people who have been spiked, such as training bouncers in these situations, increase CCTV, provide lids for cups and background checks on all staff. We want to ensure clubs can be a safe place for all genders.”
Police Scotland released a press statement saying they were aware of claims of spiking by injection on social media and are investigating a small number of reports. They are appealing to anyone that may have information regarding these incidents.
*This report was firstly written and presented as a university assignment.*
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