http://calsun.canoe.ca/News/National/20 ... 7-sun.html

Mon, June 19, 2006

Peppermint 'candy' puts Canadian in hospital
UPDATED: 2006-06-19 02:19:12 MST


By CP

VANCOUVER -- Colin Godwin should have listened to his mother's advice.

The Coquitlam geologist was drugged and robbed in Mexico after accepting candy from a stranger on a bus trip which turned into a 30-hour nightmare that landed him in hospital.

"Basically, I didn't do what my mother told me, which was to never accept candy from a stranger," the 67-year-old said.

Godwin, who spoke out about his ordeal in a bid to prevent others from suffering a similar fate, said he should have thought twice about accepting the peppermint candy offered by the man who helped him store his laptop and knapsack on the June 2 bus trip from Guadalajara to Michoacan.

The bus trip was supposed to take six hours.

Instead, Godwin woke up 30 hours later in hospital, missing his cash, traveller's cheques, passport, visa, watch and the laptop the man had graciously helped him store. The candy man was gone. Godwin, who wasn't seriously injured, figures he was given a dose of the date-rape drug Rohypnol.

Sgt. Scott Rintoul of the RCMP's Drug and Organized Crime Awareness unit agreed.

"To drug somebody for theft is not that common (in Canada)," Rintoul said.

"Rohypnol is a sleeping pill not legal in Canada or the U.S., but is legal in Mexico."