Why were 2 Montreal women denied toxicology tests after alleged druggings?

On Friday, June 17, Lea woke up alone in her bed, disoriented and terrified.

The night before, she and two close friends had gone to a bar in Montreal's Pointe-Saint-Charles neighbourhood. She says her last memory was receiving her third drink. After that, it all went black.

She's thankful her friends got her home safely but says she was distressed when she awoke, remembering little from the night before.

"I was distraught. I was angry, and I wanted answers," she said. 

Lea is not her real name. CBC News is protecting her identity because she fears reprisals for speaking publicly. She's one of two women going public with what happened to them, in the hope that it leads to systemic change.

Lea, 27, is confident she was drugged. She went to a hospital emergency room but left, realizing the wait would be so long, any drugs might be flushed from her system by the time she saw a doctor.

Testing for gamma hydroxybutyrate, or GHB, a drug commonly used in drink-spiking, can be a race against time.

GHB can only be detected in the blood for six hours, and in urine for up to 12 hours, according to Quebec's Health Ministry.

After leaving the emergency room, she went to an urgent care clinic but was told she would need to make an appointment, and the earliest one available was at least one week later. 

She called a friend familiar with Quebec's health-care system who told her to go to CLSC Métro, one of the designated Quebec locations that offers medico-social interventions to victims of sexual assault. 

Despite arriving within the 12-hour window required to test for GHB, at the CLSC Métro, Lea says she was told she was not eligible to have a toxicology examination because she had not been sexually assaulted.

"I was devastated. I wanted an answer, just to validate my experience," she said.

"I was really upset that I couldn't have that piece of evidence. And there was no way that the perpetrator, whoever committed this crime, would ever get caught."

On Monday, she filed a complaint with Montreal police.