By Finneas Brumbaugh and Alyssa Earnest

Alexis Smart, a philosophy student who used to work as a bartender, was in downtown Sacramento when a friend started showing all the signs of being drugged.

“I feel like she eventually began shutting down a little bit, to the point where she wasn’t really able to engage in conversation anymore,” Smart remembered. “We eventually realized that her drink was spiked. It was really scary. She ended up forgetting her own name, she couldn’t tell us where she lived, she was not able to recall any memory of what had happened.”

Such incidents of drink-spiking have been too common in the Capital City, and in some cases are linked to medical emergencies and sexual assaults.

A new law may help prevent someone else from suffering the same experience as Smart’s friend. Assembly Bill 1524, which went into effect in January, mandates that all state schools, such as community colleges and the California State University system, provide free and accessible drug testing devices to students on college campuses. Self-governing institutions, such as the University of California and private schools, will not be required to stock the kits but are encouraged.

Eloisa Dominguez-Olea, president of the Sigma Kappa sorority at Sac State, is among many students who work to prevent drink spiking. She said that the campus requires everyone in Greek life to be taught how to protect themselves against sexual assault and drink spiking through trainings and workshops. Dominguez-Olea also noted that, in her personal experience, this has put her on guard when going out with friends.

“Don’t bring cups, you bring a can, and you keep that can with you the whole time,” Dominguez-Olea observed. “You’re not putting it somewhere, you’re not leaving it – and if you’re leaving it with somebody, you’re leaving it with a girl or a sister. You’re not leaving [it with] somebody you don’t know.”

According to a study conducted by the CDC in 2015, 11% of women and 5.5% of men in the United States have experienced an instance of substance-facilitated assault involving penetration at some point in their lives, though the number could be much higher due to underreporting. College students are at an increased risk due to higher rates of binge drinking and a higher concentration of at-risk groups.

While usage varies, many kits test for controlled substances that are often used in drug-related sexual assaults, such as rohypnol, ketamine, GHB and flunitrazepam, also known as “roofies”.

The bill went into effect in January, but schools were already preparing for the expansion. Victoria Flores is the dean of student wellness and support services for the Los Rios Community College District, which oversees four schools educating nearly 70,000 students in the greater Sacramento area.

A 2022 bill mandated that college campuses stock freely-available fentanyl test strips and opioid overdose reversal medication in health centers. According to Flores, one of the ways schools in the LRCCD have integrated the new drug testing strips is through what they call “party kits”.

“They include a box of Narcan, fentanyl test strips, and then we recently added, with this new bill, a package of drink spike test strips.” Flores said. “Lots of folks [are] coming in and getting more than one, and that’s totally okay, we encourage as many as they need.”

Flores added that the school has given out thousands of these kits. The district orders the kits in bulk from the state, which reimburses the schools using funds collected by taxes, though there is a danger that some schools might run out faster than they can restock.

“We went through them a lot faster than I anticipated,” Flores recalled. “So, if one college had a big run on [the kits], we can actually ship to the other colleges. We’ve done that in the past, where it’s like, ‘Oh, hey, we’re almost out. Does anyone have extra?’”

Colleges can introduce the new drug testing strips by following the same procedure and practices as the rollout of fentanyl testing strips and naloxone, also known as Narcan, an opioid overdose reversal drug. According to a guide published by the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office to help schools maintain compliance, the testing devices are a similar price to the fentanyl testing strips already required on campuses.

But awareness can also be a challenge: A study conducted at the University of Texas, Austin, found merely 23.5% of the student population knew where to access Narcan with 10.4% ever receiving training on using it properly. This has sparked concern over the advertising and distribution of these new drink testing kits.

Vincenzo Rodriguez is the president of Delta Lambda Phi Iota Chapter at Sacramento State. His organization is considered a dry fraternity, meaning they do not provide or host events with alcohol. However, brothers’ safety outside of the fraternity is still a major concern, especially with the lack of advertising and accessibility of Narcan.

“That’s how we found out about it,” Rodriguez recalled. “We received kits, and then we reported back to our chapter. Other than that, we don’t really hear much about it, or we don’t really know where else we can access these kits. We didn’t really know about the Narcan rollout.”

Sacramento State officials declined to comment about the new law or any efforts to provide test strips to students.

Both Rodriguez and Dominguez-Olea said that, before joining Greek life, they were completely unaware of how to get Narcan. Rodriguez is still unsure of ways to source it, despite it being freely available on campuses. Dominguez-Olea said that this lack of knowledge could extend to the new drug testing kits.

“The general population of my sorority, if they know about Narcan, it’s not through Greek life –it’s through their own employment, schooling, that type of thing,” Dominguez-Olea explained. “I’ve been very fortunate my org has not had to experience high levels of [drink drugging]”

Bills don’t always go smoothly with implementation. Smart, who saw her friend go through a horrible experience, knows this. She points out that, despite a bill that went into effect last year which mandated similar kits to be available at bars, the kits can be expensive and inaccessible to most. Smart said having them for free on campus would have given both her and her friend a sense of control in a terrifying moment.

“If we had the drug testing kit, it would have changed the situation in so many ways.” Smart acknowledged. “It would have given her more knowledge as to what was happening to her, I think it would have let us know what happened and even give us evidence.”

Rodriguez said increased accessibility of test kits to college students could lead to more use in the wider Sacramento community.

“I would definitely hand them out to my brothers.” Rodriguez stressed. “We have a close-knit connection with the rest of the queer community in Sacramento, so I’m sure we could even pass those out to everyone else in the city.”

Smart thinks that accessibility to the drug testing kits will give power back to victims as well as businesses in the community. She said that, though bartenders are trained to be aware of drink drugging, it is still difficult to keep everyone safe.

“It’s so easy to think it will never happen to you, but it happens very often in real life and it’s really scary,” Smart reflected. “Giving students a sense of control and agency in situations they might feel vulnerable. If these kits are accessible to them at their school- it gives them that safety net.”