Bill making use of "Date Rape Drug" a felony moving quickly

A bill on the fast track at the statehouse would increase penalties for using a so-called “date rape” drug. It got unanimous approval Tuesday in the house public-safety committee, where representative Clel Baudler is chairman.He related a story of a friend who called after his daughter, out with friends, had been slipped a drug and says she spent 18 hours “out” in a hospital and doesn’t remember what happened. Baudler says he’d hate to think what would have happened if she wasn’t out with “friends.” He wants to send a message that “if you can’t get a date the real way, stay the hell out of Iowa.” Baudler wants to raise the maximum penalty for possessing the drug to five years in prison and a 75-hundred-dollar fine.A secretary tells him her friend’s daughter was slipped the drug in a Mountain Dew at a college get-together, and he says if the drug’s taken with alcohol it’s even more dangerous. Baudler is a former state trooper and says in Latin American countries the drug Rohypnol is legally prescribed as a sleeping aid, but is brought illegally into this country. Baudler says it’s smuggled in from the Caribbean, across the southern border, and he wants to get “ahead of the curve” in awareness about it. The drug Rohypnol is known on the street as “Roofies,” “Mexican Valium,” or the forget-me drug.