The National Assembly unanimously adopted on Tuesday a motion to “make rapid screening for date rape drugs available in all hospitals”.
Posted at 3:26 p.m.
The MNA and spokesperson for Québec solidaire, Manon Massé, tabled the motion which “calls on the government to ensure that anyone who requests it or whose symptoms resemble GHB poisoning can be tested, and that the equipment necessary for this screening be distributed to all hospitals”.
Last week, The Press reported that relatively few hospitals, in Montreal in particular, are equipped to detect this substance, leaving victims in doubt. The singer Ariane Brunet alias L’Isle had testified to her experience at the Verdun Hospital, which does not have these tests.
In a press briefing on Tuesday, Mme Massé said she was “extremely concerned” following “cases that broke through the media” involving alleged victims of unwitting intoxication.
“In Quebec, it’s not in all hospitals where you can get tested for date rape drugs, there, of course, GHB, but also other substances,” she recalled. “It is the integrity of women’s bodies that is at stake here […] Drugging someone against their will is a crime. And so we have to give women the means to be able to be tested anywhere in Quebec. »
The motion also points out that “one of the challenges in detecting GHB is its short lifespan” and that “the lack of data does not allow the authorities to have a status report on this crime in Quebec”. .