History is replete with examples of crime stories that, despite little or no empirical evidence, have been instrumental in shaping law, policy and social behaviour. Perhaps no other crime stories have been more prolific and enduring than those described by Pamela Donovan in her new book, Drink Spiking and Predatory Drugging: A Modern History. In this comprehensive and thoroughly engaging book, Donovan provides a historical account of the myriad drink-spiking and predatory drugging allegations, as well as actual (albeit rare) documented criminal cases, over the past 150 years in the United States and other countries, including the United Kingdom and Australia.

Drink Spiking and Predatory Drugging takes readers on an historical journey that starts in the mid-1800s during the industrial era with claims of predators (such as ‘saloon villains’) using chloroform and other synthetic drugs to knock out their victims in order to rob and rape them (Chapter 2). It then moves on to drug-related stories of the twentieth century, including claims of LSD-spiking especially prevalent during the 1960s and early 1970s (Chapters 3 and 4). The journey ends with the most recent allegations of drug-facilitated sexual assault by Rohypnol, GHB and other so-called date rape drugs (Chapter 5). Though originating in the 1990s, the latest drink-spiking narrative persists within both drug and rape discourse today. Indeed, guarding one’s drink against surreptitious drugging by sexual predators is accepted today as an effective crime prevention strategy, much like avoiding strangers and dark alleyways.

Drink Spiking and Predatory Drugging not only chronicles in vivid detail many of the drug-related crime stories documented by the news media over multiple decades, it also contextualises these stories within their distinct socio-historical contexts. For instance, Donovan aptly ties each surge of re-occurring crime stories to the specific cultural and economic anxieties of the era. As such, the drink-spiking or predatory drugging narrative served as a cautionary tale to warn not just of the dangers of certain drugs, but also of some specific behaviour (e.g., saloon drinking, sexual promiscuity) or social group (e.g., immigrants, countercultural youth) associated with the drug, rightly or wrongly, and considered deviant or dangerous by conventional society. Depictions of drugs as weapons used for crime and other predatory purposes by a vilified group of miscreants effectively convinced the public, and more importantly lawmakers, of the need for legal action and policy change.

Donovan does an excellent job in her book of demonstrating the ways in which crime stories have ultimately resulted in the transformation of certain drugs from legal medicines to criminalised substances. At the same time, she also shows how drug scares often redirected public attention away from real social problems, including, ironically, binge drinking. For instance, by focusing attention on an exaggerated risk of predators surreptitiously dropping sedatives into alcoholic drinks at bars and nightclubs, the real dangers from voluntary alcohol consumption in private settings are ignored. In this manner, a predatory drugging narrative can provide a false sense of security among users of alcohol who may see alcohol as safe, even in extreme amounts, as long as no one spikes their alcoholic beverages with an additional drug (see Chapter 8, ‘Drugs, drinking, college and warding off blame’).

Donovan also does an excellent job in delineating the various ways in which drink spiking and predatory drugging stories are gendered. For example, men are typically depicted in these crime narratives as the predators and women (and girls) as the prey. This characterisation can lead to gender-specific consequences, such as increasing unwarranted profiling of men as dangerous predators, and increasing women’s fear of male strangers in public places. The one area, however, where Drink Spiking and Predatory Drugging falls short is in its efforts to explain why drink-spiking stories are so pervasive and continue to foster gendered fears towards drug-induced rape and other crime. While Donovan does discuss the influences of the temperance and anti-saloon movements during earlier drug scares of the nineteenth century (see Chapter 2, ‘Chloral and its sisters’), she offers less explanation of how institutions and organisations have supported and even protected the later LSD-spiking allegations and more recent ‘roofies’ narrative. In an article I wrote with Colyer in Deviant Behavior (2010), we suggested that the 1990s roofies narrative has persisted beyond the expected shelf-life of most crime stories because it was (and to some extent still is) legitimised by well-intentioned victim advocates whose support of the story made it difficult to dispute or discredit without running the risk of appearing apathetic towards rape victims. Emphasising the role that organised groups and activists can play in legitimising crime stories might have bolstered Donovan’s overall discussion of the gender politics of drug scares.

Nonetheless, Drink Spiking and Predatory Drugging is an extremely well-researched, readable and provocative book. Drawing on sociological concepts related to studies of social problems, moral panics and popular culture, this book will appeal to a wide range of academic audiences, as well as to non-academics interested in learning more about drug laws and crime stories. Above all else, readers will gain both sociological and historical insight into drug scares and the crime stories that have fuelled public fears and, ultimately, helped shape drug policy for well over a century. As Donovan makes clear, drink spiking and predatory drugging stories are neither new nor harmless. On the contrary, recurrent drug-related crime stories exploit the anxieties that people have regarding ‘the power others might design to have over us through chemical mastery’ (p. 13). Illuminating the myths, inflammatory rhetoric, and legends associated with drugs and crime, and differentiating fact from fiction, are requisite steps towards preventing history from continuing to repeat itself.