'I was 17 when it happened to me': Drink spiking in Czechia can no longer be ignored

“I was 17 when it happened to me. I wasn’t drinking alcohol—it was an energy drink.”

Blerta Sejdija’s firsthand experience with drink spiking almost 10 years ago, unbeknownst to her at the time, was no isolated incident. Residents of and visitors to the Czech Republic have long been victim to the nefarious, "invisible" crime, with little recourse to authorities or even general public awareness.

Drink spiking is the act of adding alcohol or drugs to someone’s drink without their knowledge or consent, often done to incapacitate the person, making them vulnerable to theft, sexual assault, or other harm. The substances used can range from extra alcohol to sedatives or illegal drugs, and effects can include confusion, drowsiness, memory loss, or unconsciousness.

Beat Sexism, an international organization founded by Blerta and based in the Czech Republic, launched its first Instagram campaign on drink spiking in 2021 to bring the issue into public awareness.

“We started collecting stories, because I really do believe in the strength of sharing your story. That's where great things happen, or that's how you make a societal shift,” Blerta told Expats.cz.

That’s when the team realized that not only is the issue concerningly prevalent, but that these shocking incidents are not meaningfully addressed by authorities—nor had there ever been a study conducted to collect impactful data in the country.

In 2024, Beat Sexism began collecting data. The study focused in Prague, with over 1,000 respondents taking part, and revealed staggering statistics about drink spiking in the city. Since releasing the study, a joint press conference with the Czech Government and Police Presidium has garnered media attention and online awareness, raising questions about how to tackle the issue.

Beat Sexism’s study revealed alarming anecdotes from victims who had later learned of the appalling intentions behind their perpetrators’ actions. From sexual assault by strangers to "relieving" social anxieties within friendship groups, drink spiking has reportedly been weaponized for a shocking range of justifications.

“My friends confessed that they’d mixed ‘Spanish flies’ into my water, they thought it was a joke, luckily it didn’t have any effect on me, but I was very upset,” reported one anonymous respondent.

Another respondent recalls being given something to drink and “waking up in the morning with a stranger in bed” after only one beer, only putting together what had happened “more than 10 years later when the topic started to be discussed publicly.”

The report also highlights that it is not only women who are targeted; one respondent describes her husband falling victim while they were at a festival together—“he was alone for a moment and during that time a strange woman spiked his drink and tried to get him to leave with her. I didn’t see the effects on him until about 20 minutes later.”

One of the most baffling cases was a woman who attended an innocuous outdoor party in a park with her boyfriend’s classmates in college. “They were IT guys, they were shy about talking to girls, so they thought of buying bottles of draft wine for the girls and putting drugs in them."

A few hours later, the anonymous woman reports she lost consciousness and fell face down on a traffic barrier. She ended up with a broken nose and concussion, and was told in hospital that she was drunk.

Expats.cz reached out to Czech Police to ask what someone should do in the case that they have been spiked. As Blerta mentioned, there was limited amount of information online pertaining to drink spiking in the Czech Republic, and the response from the police was somewhat insubstantial.

Beat Sexism is working to change the approach of police and how they talk to victims, referencing the UK system of reporting which entails detailed toxicology tests to determine the type of drug in the body. The goal is also to prevent spiking before it happens by training the staff of bars and clubs—which Blerta says bars in Prague specifically are “aware of.”

“We recorded a video campaign in a local bar in Prague and tested whether the bar staff will react. We had actors, a girl and a boy, and the girl was spiking the boy—because it's not just men or the ones or the aggressors—and the bar staff reacted immediately. They weren't aware that this was happening, and when we finished the filming, she shared with us that in her practice as bar staff she had numerous experiences with stopping drink spiking.” 

Longer term, Beat Sexism aims to add drink spiking to school curriculums as part of drug prevention education and open the debate about legislative change to define it as a crime in the Czech Republic; again looking to UK law which is currently being discussed in parliament.

For English-speaking expats in the Czech Republic, navigating the aftermath of a suspected drink spiking can be even more daunting due to the language barrier and lack of dedicated services. “It’s hard for me to say that they can reach out to anyone, because currently, there’s no English-operating organization or department that deals with this,” Blerta explains. While efforts are underway to build a multilingual web app with safety tips, emergency contacts, and a database of verified “safe places,” that solution is still in development.

In the meantime, non-Czech speakers are encouraged to follow the same urgent steps as locals: alert bar staff, contact emergency services, and go to a hospital to request toxicology tests. “I’m hoping there wouldn’t be a story where, because of a language barrier, they wouldn’t seek help,” she added. 

As awareness begins to build and data finally enters the conversation, one thing is clear: drink spiking is not a rare anomaly—it’s a systemic issue hiding in plain sight. Blerta and her team at Beat Sexism are pushing that reality into the light, demanding not only recognition, but response. 

“The Czech Republic is at a very early stage of dealing with this. We just opened the topic now, and the government themselves don't understand how they could have overseen this for so many years. It has happened for decades, but now we're doing something about it.”