I Think Someone Drugged My Drink. Can That Be a Defense to a DWI?
One of the most common things I hear from potential clients goes something like this:
“I don’t think I was that drunk. I think someone must have put something in my drink.”
People usually call it being “ruffied.”
While drink-spiking could be a real crime and should always be taken seriously when there is evidence to support it, the overwhelming majority of these claims simply have no objective evidence behind them.
If you’ve been arrested for DWI in Louisiana, it’s important to understand the difference between a suspicion and a defense.
It’s Human Nature to Look for Another Explanation
Getting arrested for DWI is embarrassing.
It can affect your driver’s license, your employment, your insurance, and your reputation. Nobody wants to admit they simply drank too much.
When something bad happens, it’s human nature to look for another explanation.
Sometimes it’s easier to believe someone else caused the problem than to accept that alcohol simply affected you more than you expected.
That doesn’t necessarily mean someone is lying. Many people genuinely struggle to understand how intoxicated they became, especially if they have gaps in their memory.
But as a defense attorney, I can’t build a case on speculation. I have to build it on evidence.
It’s a Convenient Defense
One reason I hear the “I think I was drugged” explanation so often is that it provides an alternative explanation for an embarrassing situation.
A DWI arrest can be one of the most embarrassing experiences a person ever goes through. Suddenly, they have to explain what happened to a spouse, parents, children, friends, coworkers, or an employer. It’s natural to want an explanation that doesn’t involve admitting they simply drank too much.
If someone believes they were secretly drugged, the story changes dramatically. Instead of saying:
“I drank too much and made a bad decision.”
the explanation becomes:
“Someone must have put something in my drink. I didn’t do anything wrong. I don’t remember what happened. This wasn’t my fault.”
From a psychological standpoint, that’s an understandable reaction. Most people don’t like admitting mistakes, especially when those mistakes have serious consequences.
The problem is that a convenient explanation is not the same thing as evidence.
As a defense attorney, I can’t rely on an explanation simply because it makes someone feel better about what happened. I have to evaluate whether there is objective evidence supporting it.
In my experience, when the only basis for the claim is, “I don’t think I drank enough to be that intoxicated,” there usually isn’t enough evidence to make that the centerpiece of a legal defense.
A successful DWI defense is built on facts that can be proven—not on theories that simply make the events of the evening easier to accept.
Alcohol Alone Can Surprise People
One of the biggest misconceptions I see is that people think they know exactly how alcohol affects them.
The truth is, alcohol affects everyone differently.
Your level of impairment can depend on:
- How quickly you drank
- Whether you ate beforehand
- Your body weight
- Your metabolism
- Medications
- Fatigue
- Stress
- The strength of the drinks
Alcohol alone can cause:
- Poor judgment
- Memory blackouts
- Loss of coordination
- Slurred speech
- Confusion
- Bad decision making
I’ve represented many people who honestly remember very little about the evening, yet there was absolutely no evidence that anyone tampered with their drink. It’s called “blacking out” from too much alcohol. It can be a hit to the ego to accept that you just weren’t able to handle your liquor, but that could be what happened.
What Would You Expect if Someone Actually Drugged Your Drink?
Drink-spiking could happen in theory.
If it does, it is a serious crime.
Many drugs associated with drink-spiking can cause profound sedation, confusion, loss of consciousness, or the inability to protect yourself—especially when mixed with alcohol.
Unfortunately, people who are secretly drugged are often vulnerable to becoming victims of other crimes, including robbery or sexual assault.
But that usually isn’t what I see in DWI cases.
Instead, clients often describe spending the evening:
- Visiting with friends
- Ordering additional drinks
- Dancing
- Walking around the bar
- Talking to people
- Going from one location to another
- Eventually getting into their vehicle and driving away
Those facts are generally much more consistent with alcohol intoxication than with someone who suddenly became incapacitated because their drink was secretly drugged.
Every case is different. If there is actual evidence suggesting a drink was tampered with, that absolutely deserves investigation.
But simply waking up after a DWI arrest and thinking, “Somebody must have put something in my drink,” is not evidence.
If You Truly Believed Someone Drugged Your Drink…
One of the questions I often ask clients is:
“If you believed someone secretly drugged your drink, what did you do about it?”
- Did you call the police?
- Did you report it to the bar or restaurant?
- Did you ask management to preserve surveillance video?
- Did you go to the hospital for toxicology testing?
- Did you tell the arresting officer you believed someone tampered with your drink?
- Did you ask your friends whether they saw anything suspicious?
These are the kinds of things many people would be expected to do if they truly believed they had just been the victim of a serious crime.
Instead, what I often hear is that the idea of being “ruffied” didn’t come up until after the DWI arrest—sometimes days later, after talking with friends or searching the internet for explanations.
That doesn’t necessarily mean the person is being dishonest.
It does, however, make it much more difficult to support the claim with evidence.
If someone truly believes they were the victim of drink spiking, the sooner that suspicion is reported and investigated, the greater the chance that evidence can be preserved.
Where Is the Evidence?
Whenever someone tells me they think they were drugged, I ask a simple question:
“What evidence do we have that it actually happened?”
In most of these cases, there is:
- No toxicology test showing another drug.
- No witness who saw anyone tamper with the drink.
- No identified suspect.
- No suspicious person captured on video.
- No report made to the business.
- No police investigation into an alleged drink-spiking.
- No evidence that another crime occurred.
If someone intentionally drugs another person’s drink, that is a very serious crime.
But like every other crime, it still has to be proven.
Simply believing something happened is not the same as having evidence that it happened.
Should Your Lawyer Search for Surveillance Video?
Another question I hear is:
“Can you get surveillance video from the bar?”
Sometimes the answer is yes.
But the important question is what are we looking for?
If someone tells me there was a fight in the parking lot at 11:15 p.m., it makes perfect sense to obtain surveillance video. We know an event supposedly occurred, and we’re looking to see whether it was captured.
The same is true if there was an accident, an interaction with police, or another identifiable event.
Looking for video of someone secretly slipping something into a drink is completely different.
Usually the client cannot tell me:
- Who supposedly did it.
- When it happened.
- Where it happened.
- Which drink it happened to.
- Whether anyone witnessed it.
At that point, we’re no longer investigating a known event.
We’re hoping to find evidence of something that may never have happened.
That’s not a productive investigation.
Not every bar or restaurant has cameras.
Not every camera records every area.
Many systems overwrite recordings after only a few days.
Even when video exists, there may be nothing on it because there was nothing to capture.
Even if there is a video of someone putting something in your drink, there is no evidence as to what the substance was.
As a defense attorney, my job is to focus my client’s time and money on investigations that have a reasonable chance of uncovering useful evidence—not on fishing expeditions based solely on speculation.
Build Your Defense on Evidence, Not Speculation
If someone truly believes they were drugged, I want to know:
- Was blood collected shortly afterward?
- Was toxicology testing performed?
- Did anyone witness suspicious behavior?
- Are there text messages?
- Are there surveillance cameras covering a specific area?
- Is there any independent evidence supporting the claim?
If those things exist, we’ll absolutely investigate them.
But if the only basis for the claim is:
“I don’t remember everything.”
or
“I didn’t think I drank that much.”
that’s usually not enough to build an effective legal defense.
Instead, I’d rather spend our time focusing on issues that regularly determine the outcome of Louisiana DWI cases:
- Whether the traffic stop was legal.
- Body camera footage.
- Dash camera footage.
- Field sobriety testing.
- Breath or blood testing procedures.
- Police reports.
- Witness statements.
- Driver’s license issues.
- Administrative Hearing deadlines.
Those are the issues that often make a real difference.
The Bottom Line
I’ve represented people accused of DWI in Louisiana for more than twenty years, and I’ve heard the “I think someone put something in my drink” explanation more times than I can count.
Most of the time, alcohol alone explains what happened.
One of my responsibilities as a lawyer is to give clients an honest assessment of their case, not simply tell them what they want to hear.
The strongest DWI defenses are built on facts, evidence, and the law—not on speculation or wishful thinking.
If you’ve been arrested for DWI in Louisiana, the most productive thing you can do is work with an attorney who will carefully evaluate the actual evidence, identify legitimate legal issues, and build a defense based on what can be proven—not on theories that cannot.
