Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Germany to classify date rape drugs as weapons to ensure justice for survivors

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 84 posts

Re: Germany to classify date rape drugs as weapons to ensure justice for survivors

#71

Post by arximboldi »

RaiausderDose wrote: post #58

I hope the classification for these drugs is not so wide that "normal" drug users are now weapon holders while using their stuff recreational without harming anybody. Edit: I got more infos: - Germany's national authorities will classify GBL and 1,4-Butanediol as weapons under German criminal law, treating administration as weapon deployment to strengthen prosecution. - Under previous German criminal law, administeri…

Does this mean that possession / carrying of GBL in a public context (e.g. at party) is also being made illegal and can get you sent to prison?

Re: Germany to classify date rape drugs as weapons to ensure justice for survivors

#72

Post by aerostable_slug »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #38
aerostable_slug wrote: post #15

In California, rape of an unconscious person is not considered a violent felony for the purposes of 'strikes' as well as early release from prison. A rapist may serve as little as 50% of their sentence due to this fact. It was only this year (2025) that rape of an unconscious person who was made unconscious by the assailant (a date rape drug provision like Germany's) became a violent felony. Germany is not alone in t…

Source?

California's rather controversial Prop 57 (early release from prison) uses the list of violent felonies outlined in § 667.5(c) of the California penal code, which excludes a number of felonies many feel are in fact violent. This is because it that list was never intended to be used as an exhaustive list or used for determining early release from prison, it was supposed to be a list of the most dire felonies used for calculating mandatory life imprisonment. Jerry Brown and his supporters changed that, and thus rape of an unconscious person and many other violent crimes still allowed perpetrators to serve only half of their sentences.

California Senate Bill 268 closed the classification gap by adding certain rapes of intoxicated or unconscious victims (especially when the defendant administered the intoxicating substance) to the list of “violent felonies” under § 667.5. It went into effect at the beginning of 2025.

Re: Germany to classify date rape drugs as weapons to ensure justice for survivors

#73

Post by aerostable_slug »

squigz wrote: post #40
aerostable_slug wrote: post #15

In California, rape of an unconscious person is not considered a violent felony for the purposes of 'strikes' as well as early release from prison. A rapist may serve as little as 50% of their sentence due to this fact. It was only this year (2025) that rape of an unconscious person who was made unconscious by the assailant (a date rape drug provision like Germany's) became a violent felony. Germany is not alone in t…

So if they're unconscious for some other reason - or the assailant wasn't the one who drugged them - it's not a felony? Sometimes I'm still surprised at how politicians can defend certain positions.

> Sometimes I'm still surprised at how politicians can defend certain positions.

Well, the people who opposed it were widely decried as racist.

It's pretty easy to push things past the public when the press is complicit and the opposition is tarred and feathered as evil oppressors.

Re: Germany to classify date rape drugs as weapons to ensure justice for survivors

#74

Post by BriggyDwiggs42 »

kachapopopow wrote: post #70
BriggyDwiggs42 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait did you just put rape in quotes wtf

it is to imply ambiguity which I guess reading it a 2nd time can imply something entirely different woops.

If you were to put your point into more careful words, what would it be?

Re: Germany to classify date rape drugs as weapons to ensure justice for survivors

#75

Post by kachapopopow »

BriggyDwiggs42 wrote: post #74
kachapopopow wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it is to imply ambiguity which I guess reading it a 2nd time can imply something entirely different woops.

If you were to put your point into more careful words, what would it be?

it's just a bad quickly written comment that only has surface level thoughts I was writing a paragraph about it, but realized that in the end it boils down to any kind of sexual actions during intoxication is same as statutory rape (cannot give consent) and really shouldn't happen at all, in reality the comment was just outsourcing this conclusion instead of thinking about it for more than few seconds.

Re: Germany to classify date rape drugs as weapons to ensure justice for survivors

#76

Post by afiori »

Beijinger wrote: post #67
afiori wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyway this is a matter of judicial discretion to decide whether personhood and rights would apply to an alien visitor. The only difference between precedent laws and codes is that the judges act as a secondary less stable legislature. You could very well have a mixed system where legislature has to filter and ratify court rulings to decide which become law and which do not. In short this has nothing to do with havin…

You don't understand the problem. If we encounter aliens, they would likely make a law to protect them. In the situation I came up with, this is their first encounter with us, and they would NOT be protected. You are very optimistic that they will be considered animals. For example they would have to live on organic matter. And they would have to have a spine to get more protection since living things with a spine ar…

I still do not get what this has to do with whether judges act as a secondary legislature

Re: Germany to classify date rape drugs as weapons to ensure justice for survivors

#77

Post by scarmig »

aerostable_slug wrote: post #15

In California, rape of an unconscious person is not considered a violent felony for the purposes of 'strikes' as well as early release from prison. A rapist may serve as little as 50% of their sentence due to this fact. It was only this year (2025) that rape of an unconscious person who was made unconscious by the assailant (a date rape drug provision like Germany's) became a violent felony. Germany is not alone in t…

In California, attacking someone with a knife, solicitation of murder, and shooting a gun at someone in their car are all nonviolent felonies.

I'm happy--indeed eager--to have all of these (correctly) classified as violent felonies. But there's simply the matter of public opinion and how much space in state prisons there is. If we hold prison capacity constant, increasing the severity of punishment of one crime necessarily decreases the severity of punishment of other crimes.

Re: Germany to classify date rape drugs as weapons to ensure justice for survivors

#78

Post by defrost »

scarmig wrote: post #77
aerostable_slug wrote: post #15

In California, rape of an unconscious person is not considered a violent felony for the purposes of 'strikes' as well as early release from prison. A rapist may serve as little as 50% of their sentence due to this fact. It was only this year (2025) that rape of an unconscious person who was made unconscious by the assailant (a date rape drug provision like Germany's) became a violent felony. Germany is not alone in t…

In California, attacking someone with a knife, solicitation of murder, and shooting a gun at someone in their car are all nonviolent felonies. I'm happy--indeed eager--to have all of these (correctly) classified as violent felonies. But there's simply the matter of public opinion and how much space in state prisons there is. If we hold prison capacity constant, increasing the severity of punishment of one crime neces…

The US has a lot of people in prison for "Felony Murder" .. being loosely connected to a crime in which someone dies.

This isn't even a crime in many other countries, the UK, Australia, for example.

Those countries charge people for their actions, not the actions of others.

In the US you have people on long sentences for Felony Murder because as teenagers they and friends broke into a house to rob it, and had one of the group shot by police, home owners, security.

Instead of a year or two for robbery, or even a parole sentence and hefty fine for being young and damn and trying doors they end up with fifty year or life sentences due to other people killing one of their friends.

There's one (of many) area that could be cleaned out to make room for the actually intentionally violent.

Re: Germany to classify date rape drugs as weapons to ensure justice for survivors

#79

Post by nasmorn »

defrost wrote: post #78
scarmig wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In California, attacking someone with a knife, solicitation of murder, and shooting a gun at someone in their car are all nonviolent felonies. I'm happy--indeed eager--to have all of these (correctly) classified as violent felonies. But there's simply the matter of public opinion and how much space in state prisons there is. If we hold prison capacity constant, increasing the severity of punishment of one crime neces…

The US has a lot of people in prison for "Felony Murder" .. being loosely connected to a crime in which someone dies. This isn't even a crime in many other countries, the UK, Australia, for example. Those countries charge people for their actions, not the actions of others. In the US you have people on long sentences for Felony Murder because as teenagers they and friends broke into a house to rob it, and had one of…

So if my importing a restricted exotic animal (felony under the Lacey act) leads to someone’s death (TSA agent shooting my mom who becomes hysterical as she sees the snake in my suitcase) I could go to prison for life?

Re: Germany to classify date rape drugs as weapons to ensure justice for survivors

#80

Post by nasmorn »

fsckboy wrote: post #36
im3w1l wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me clarify. I meant the following. Assume ghb is found and evidence of sex. The woman claims she didn't take it and didn't want to have sex. Wouldn't this be enough for a conviction?

if the jury believed the woman's claims, yes, it's enough for conviction. conviction rates are high not because it's easy to prove guilt, but because district attorneys don't bring case that are likely to be lost. the scenario you describe might not be considered strong enough to win, and resources are limited, so this hypothetical case might not get a hearing.

Not in German law. There are no plea bargains there.
Post reply on HN