A disgusting old man drugs a girl and rapes her; it’s so messed up.

Sexual assault after inducing sleep with sleeping pills—the initial charge was surprisingly minor.

In June 2022, China’s Supreme People’s Procuratorate issued a directive stating that administering drugs—such as sleeping pills—to a person for the purpose of engaging in sexual intercourse should be prosecuted as rape.

This move was prompted by a case in which a man repeatedly administered sleeping pills and other substances over a period of approximately five years to two women—one a romantic partner and the other a woman he met at a restaurant. Initially, he was charged not with rape but with the crime of “deceiving another person into ingesting drugs,” resulting in a sentence of only three and a half years in prison. Under Chinese criminal law, the penalty for rape starts at three years of imprisonment and can extend to life imprisonment or the death penalty if aggravating circumstances are present; consequently, the specific charge brought against a defendant significantly influences the severity of the sentence.