Slashdot Mirror
New Nail Polish Alerts Wearers To Date Rape Drugs
stephendavion writes Checking to see if your drink has been tampered with is about to get a whole lot more discreet. Thanks to the work of four North Carolina State University undergrads, you'll soon be able to find out without reaching for a testing tool. That's because you'll already have five of them on each hand. The team — Ankesh Madan, Stephen Gray, Tasso Von Windheim, and Tyler Confrey-Maloney — has come up with a creative and unobtrusive way to package chemicals that react when exposed to Rohypnol and GHB. They put it in nail polish that they're calling Undercover Colors.
That we need ways to test drinks for date rape drugs shows the state of the world we live in. I don't want to live on this planet anymore.
We don't have to. The better solution would be to use cups that are covered and not set them down after being filled.
As far as this technology goes, it might cut down on those particular drugs being used, but I doubt they're the only ones that people use.
I think it might be that you respond this way when no one accused you of it.
Methinks the not-lady doth protest too much.
Yes, because sticking your nails into a drink is totally discreet. I still think the best method is to just not leave a drink unattended when you're out.
Why do enough members of my own gender have to be such creepy bastards that we need something like this to be developed? I enjoy sex as much as the next healthy, red-blooded adult man does, but I have never had to slip drugs into some woman's drink to get it. I sure as hell haven't always 'got the girl' at the end of the night, but seriously? How fucked up do you have to be to do something like this? Shit like this is one of the many reasons why, if there are alien civilizations out there watching us, that they don't contact us openly: We still act like goddamn animals (and no, I'm not trying to be funny).
C'mon guys, knock this shit off already!
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
And obviously that's what they're suggesting here, that you and me and every other guy on the planet is despicable scum.
Has it ever occurred to you that this is a valid and common concern? It's ridiculous that women have to go through such lengths to feel safe going out. But the current reality is that it IS necessary. Not because you yourself might spike their drink, but the chance that someone might is high enough, and the result is horrific enough, that products like this are the necessity.
And instead of sympathizing with that, you decided to make this about how you personally feel slighted that anyone would suggest there's a need for this.
i think the benefit of nail polish is that it's subtle. to whip out a testing strip in a bar is to say "hey everyone - i think the guy im talking to may be a rapist and trying to drug me. pardon me while i conduct an experiment. "
to dip one fingertips into a well stirred (and presumably mostly full) drink could be very discreetly done. and i dont think hygienics should be an issue (esp with the alcohol content.) and if a girls fingertips are so grody she feels the hygiene is too rough, well.. then she may have bigger issues.
I know a lot of folks with allergies and diet sensitivities. Wheat, Gluten, Dairy, Casein, Soy, Peanuts, Tree Nuts, Shellfish, etc... A detector like this could be really useful if the detected compounds were expanded.
unless you're Penn Jillette, most men do not wear nail polish.
it would also be very important to educate the wearer that they could never, under any circumstances, topcoat as it would render the system useless. Salons would also need training on numerous procedures that, while safe for normal polish, would damage the system.
Disclosure: ive worked in a salon. my suggestion would be to offer a topcoat or clearcoat that can be added to existing colours. This system would also work well in french tips, but again, most men do not wear them.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Because fearmongering about dirty, nasty predatory men is a lot more politically palatable than talking to young women about making bad choices and the consequences thereof. That's "substantiating the patriarchy".
The public narrative is about "victimization" not about "stupidity and carelessness".
Don't get me wrong, a man who takes advantage of a girl who's drunk is just as much a scumbag shit as someone who takes advantage of a girl who's been drugged.
But... I know that if I left my car running with the keys in it, even if the guy that (almost inevitably) would steal it should & would be prosecuted, simultaneously the insurance company isn't going to replace my car because of my own stupid choices.
Just sayin'.
-Styopa
Neo-Feminist standard tactics: All men are savages. Because looking at actual facts would expose them for the hate-preachers and frauds they are.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
I have no problem with this product. But I am concerned about false-positives. And I don't mean just the "it detected a daterape drug but in fact there was nothing in the drink". I mean the wrong guy gets identified as the one who spiked the drink and gets his life ruined as a result.
But that is a societal problem.
But that is a societal problem.
So is the need for this product.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
No, jerk. Nothing here says "All men are savages". That's all in your mind. Some men are savages, and women need every level of protection against them possible. This story is about one new form of protection.
I guess the real question is: why do you feel threatened by a new date rape prevention tool?
Do you get equally offended when Toyota adds a new interior airbag?
Do you assume that Toyota is telling you that *you are a terrilbe driver?
How about when you're operating system alerts you to a new security update?
Is Microsoft or Redhat telling you that you can't keep your computer safe?
Why would this story be any different?
I think the main point is to prevent the woman from drinking the spiked drink. I think it is rather unlike that a guy gets convicted (or even prosecuted) based solely on this test. Perhaps arrested, but more likely just questioned. Unless he's black, in which case he would probably be shot by the police, but that's a problem which has nothing to do with this product.
Last summer, I had on one early Sunday morning fare (a woman), tell me how her friend walked out of the Southampton Social Club (near the Southampton Lirr train station) the Saturday night before after feeling 'strange', and fell onto the club's driveway, face first, slightly (thank God) cutting up her face. The young woman managed to call her friend (my passenger) who drove and picked her up. No police were summoned, and as I've learned since, it wouldn't have mattered much, since the Southampton Police in L.I. do not even have a 'rape kit' available to them.
One other episode was this (2014) summer: Early one morning (5:30 am), I was dispatched to a local, S.Hampton call to a (very expensive, not unusual for the vicinity) home. After getting admittance through the gated driveway, two beautiful young women got in. One was sick and 'out of it', though her friend was much more in control of herself, and gave me the info needed to get them to where they needed to go (a temporary summer rental home). The other young woman was a really cute, vulnerable type young lady, who I could tell, was not feeling very well. During our trip she needed a plastic 'barf bag' that I supplied her with. And her friend told me how she suspected that her friend got 'roofied' by one of the residents of the home. Very plausible allegation, to my mind. I did my job and delivered both of them safely to their destination. A few days later I was called to their address to take both of them to the train station so they could leave Southampton. On the trip we spoke little, other than me asking the young lady if she was alright, she quietly said she was, though I had a very bad feeling that she was molested that day. As their cab driver, there wasn't a damn thing I could do to help them, excepting safely delivering them where they wanted to go. It's a shitty, powerless feeling for a man.
Some 5 years ago I was roofied myself, by a supposed 'friend'. Within a 30 minute period after eating a drug laced slice of pizza, I felt quite 'odd', and left the home of my 'friend'. I walked over 2 miles to get back to my rented room, needing to stop on the way to throw up the pizza I'd ingested. The final, 3 story climb up the stairs to my room were the most difficult, I was forcibly pulling my body up the stairs by gripping the stairway's banister, and I'm a somewhat strong man. As soon as I got inside my room and locked my door behing me I collapsed onto my bed, and for the next six hours I slept the sleep of the dead. Woke up knowing this was not a normal thing to happen to me, and deduced that I must have been 'roofied'. I wanted at the time to go back and kill that guy who I know did that to me. I didn't do that. One day I went there, knocked on his door (acting normal), and made sure that I got my belongings out of storage from his garage. As I walked away, his last words to me were, "You need a psychiatrist!" (I had just began walking away from him down his driveway while carrying my packed up bags).
At those words I almost froze, intent on wanting to drop my bags, and go walk up to him (my 'former' friend), and clock him a good one in his face. I didn't do that though, my intent was just to get away from the asshole without police involvement and my meager, but important to me, belongings intact. Instead of doing that, I remember my steps hesitating a small bit, but I instead kept on walking away from him, despite my wanting so much to stop, go back and smash his face in for what I knew he had done to me.
Now, I am a somewhat strong guy who is non-violent by nature, though I am capable of violence, when pushed too far. I mentally 'chose' not to act upon my 'baser instincts'. I 'thought' through it as it was happening, kno