Source: Orange County Register Contact: Sat, 14 Feb 1998 Author: Richard Cole, The Associated Press STUDY TURNS UP LITTLE PROOF OF DATE-RAPE DRUG Only five urine samples from 578 rape victims give evidence of Rohypnol. SAN FRANCISCO-Alcohol was by far the most common drug found in a study of urine samples taken from 578 rape victims who said they had been drugged before the attack, a forensic scientist said Friday. In 40 percent of the samples, no drugs were found, while only five samples showed the presence of the so-called date rape drug Rohypnol, said Dr. Mahmoud El-Sohly. "From what we are seeing now, it does not seem that any one drug is responsible," said El-Sohly, who runs a private lab and teaches pharmaceutics at the University of Mississippi. He presented his study Friday at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. Only five samples showed Rohypnol, and four of those also showed the presence of other drugs, including alcohol, cocaine and opiates, El-Sohly said. Hoffman-LaRoche Inc., the maker of Rohypnol, nicknamed "roodies" on the street, paid for the testing, ElSohly said. The samples were provided by police departments, rape crisis centers and emergency rooms. Alcohol was present in 208 cases (36 percent), tranquilizers in 49 (8 percent) and cocaine in 40 (7 percent). In 234 cases, ElSohly found no trace of any drugs. In 1996, congressional hearings led to a federal law outlawing Rohypnol, scientifically called flunitrazepam, and mandating an additional 20-year sentence for anyone caught using it to commit rape. ElSohly's findings came as no surprise to people working in rape crisis centers, said Catherine Dougherty, a sexual-assault nurse examiner in Monmouth County, N.J. "A lot of my colleagues who suspected the use of date-rape drugs have sent our samples, and I don't know any who have gotten positive hits," she said.