In an attempt to reduce drug-facilitated sexual assault, researchers have designed new glassware that can warn if the drink is tainted.
Date rape drugs, also called predator drugs, are drugs that assist in the execution of drug-facilitated sexual assault (DFSA). Usually added to a food or drink surreptitiously i.e. without the victim’s knowledge, the drugs have a sedative, hypnotic, dissociative, and/or amnesiac effect.
The new glassware, a line of 16-ounce glasses, cups and straws, changes color when it comes in contact with common ‘date rape’ drugs like ketamine, Rohypnol and GHB.
Developed by DrinkSavvy founder Mike Abramson in collaboration with John MacDonald, chemistry professor at Worcester Polytechnic institute in Massachusetts, the new glassware, thus, reveals to users whether or not their beverages have been laced with common date-rape drugs.
The advent of idea
Personal experience of being drugged led Michael Abramson to develop the DrinkSavvy range of glassware.
“Within the past three years, three of my close friends, and myself have been unwitting victims of consuming an odorless, colorless and tasteless drug slipped into our drink,” Abramson wrote in an email. “That is why it is our goal to have as many bars and clubs as possible to simply swap out their current drinkware for DrinkSavvy drinkware, making it the new safety standard.”
How DrinkSavvy drinkware works?
DrinkSavvy drinkware comes across as just like any other glassware. However, if the beverage in it is laced with ‘date-rape’ drugs red stripes will appear on the cup, indicating that the drink is unsafe to drink.
Likewise, the DrinkSavvy straw turns red when it is planted in a cup spiked with date rape drugs.
“They’re discrete, because they look and function just like any other cup, straw, stirrer or glass,” Abramson said.
While, the DrinkSavvy glassware is set to launch for free in select rape crisis centers this September, it will be introduced to the public by mid-2014.
