Several Groningen residents over the last week have reportedly been ‘jabbed’ with drug-filled needles while on a night out in the city centre. The injections typically leave small, painless marks; but the real danger lurks within the substances that are unknowingly passed into the victim’s bloodstream.
According to the Groninger Internet Courant, people have previously been hospitalized in the United Kingdom, where the phenomenon first emerged, as a result of being injected with dangerous substances such as ketamine and gamma-hydroxybutyrate (GHB).
“Bystanders came up to me to say that I looked strange, and that I had a weird look in my eyes,” says Jordy Schuur in conversation with RTV Noord.
He was on a night out in the city centre, when suddenly he began to feel like something was not right. Eventually he lost track of his surroundings and was only able to find his way to safety early the following morning. Sometime later he noticed the hole in his arm, and the realization that he had been drugged with a needle sunk in.
Despite a relatively small number of reports, police say that they are taking the situation very seriously and are opening an investigation into the matter. They emphasize that urgency is a key element in investigating the injections.
“If someone suspects that they have been drugged, it is important to report this to us immediately. Especially because narcotics sometimes wear off quickly which makes investigation more difficult,” says police spokesman José van Gijssel.
With the police receiving additional reports from throughout the North, Schuur suggests that people going out remain aware of their surroundings, lest they also become the victims of a drugged needle.
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