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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.
You have to sign over all inventions you create as undergrads to the university.
At least if you're an engineer.
The university was bitter about an undergrad project turning into a billion dollar company(SAS) and them not seeing a cut.
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.
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.
In 14 years practising emergency medicine, I've seen large numbers of young women who get drunk and come to A&E firmly believing that they've been given a "date rape drug," but when laboratory testing is used to confirm that belief I've only ever seen one actual case of drug-facilitated sexual assault. We live in a world with a lot less drug-facilitated date rape than fearmongering about date rape drugs.
It takes 2 seconds with your back turned to get a drink spiked. The level of responsibility you're demanding is beyond human. Unless you spend your entire night focusing on nothing but your beverage(which I gotta say, is worse than dunking your finger in your drink occasionally), that's not going to work.
my first thought was that this was redundant, as but it seem to me that women who are apt to buy and wear this nail polish would probably already follow the most basic rule.. if a drink leaves your hand... (or passes within someone else's range of dosing), you don't drink from it again. EVER. to me, that's probably the most basic think to teach girls new to bars. I was astounded when i was in thailand a couple of years ago taking a course, and when we hit a bar one night, a girl from my class (probably 21 or 22 years old) put her drink down and left it to dance.. only to go back to it afterwards. i gave her quite an earful about the dangers etc etc.
all that being said though, the rule wouldn't help you if the bartender is in cahoots with his buddy. you could also then only drink beer from a bottle (that you see opened in front of you), but for mixed drinks - why not have the extra level of security?
also, to the extent that people understand this exists, it may prevent ne'er do wells from trying it in the first place, as a positive test should result in some serious accusations flying that creepers would probably like to avoid.
First of all, you've got to stick your fingers in your drink, which doesn't seem at all appealing. Why nail-polish? Why not just use the strips? If all you had was nail-polish and someone came out with strips, that'd be an improvement. This looks like a step backwards.
Secondly, what's the false-positive/false-negative rate on this thing? Were there any compromises in accuracy in order to make it work as a nail-polish?
Again, doesn't anyone see a problem with sticking your fingers in your drink? I know I'm the finicky type, but doesn't this look bothersome to anyone else?
I encourage you to stand with me here, instead of posting as an AC. I don't believe in this 'rape culture' nonsense I keep hearing about, but I do believe that us men have a responsibility to police our own against these flaming assholes that do shit like this. The line needs to be drawn here, and no farther.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
It's more discreet than using a special straw, which seems to have been the predecessor (at least in spirit) of this new method.
Seriously? Never heard of the Duke Lacrosse Team that was falsely accused of rape?
[John]
Shit better not happen!
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.
You've never blued someone's soda? Bromothymal blue does it. You can't see it in caramel color, and then you pee green or blue.
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Rapists don't have Rapist stamped across their forehead.
You can't get GHB anymore because of dumb ass jocks, but, for some reason, Phenibut isn't scheduled.
Phenibut is a GABA receptor agonizer with a powerful relaxing effect. It's OTC, but pretty useless: you become tolerant on the first use, and then require high doses to get an effect. It might be useful once a month, give or take a week. After using it for 2-3 days--by upping the dose a bit to overcome tolerance--side effects include severe depression and suicidal desires. Your life actually becomes a steaming pile of despair from which you wish to escape. It's far more addictive than Valium, and worse than Heroin.
A dose of 250mg is a good, strong initial dose. Doses of 5000mg are common among body builders, who use the substance as a relaxant while training (bodybuilders used to dose GHB for the same purpose). A dose of 5000mg directly into some girl's drink would be fantastic... until it wore off. In the interim, nothing would bother her, and she'd probably be amenable to whatever you want. The next day, she'd cry a lot, then kill herself after deciding she'd be better off.
Again: this stuff is OTC, has no viable medical use, is impossible to use without addiction, has severe withdraw effects, is not directly toxic at high doses, and can be used to make someone compliant.
It should be banned because it's sold OTC as an anti-stress relaxant, yet is incredibly fucking dangerous to the user. It's not a thing you could dose yourself safely--like Modafinil or Dextroamphetamine--because it's not a thing a fucking physician could prescribe safely for any useful treatment. It's not a dangerous drug that can provide a recreational high or a medical benefit or can somehow be managed; it's a completely useless, indirectly toxic substance that creates immediate tolerance and brings on intense withdraw qualifying as a medical emergency.
I bet their strips don't test for that.
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Also many rapists meet their victims at a bar or club.
The truth of the mater is, women have absolutely no problem playing the victim card when it suits them. They lie and manipulate to garner support to punish innocent people.
It's that last line that betrays you. Some women have no problem lying and playing the victim when it suits them, but in your mind that has morphed into ALL women, and that is your problem, not theirs. Some men also have no problem doing bad things to women and lying when it suits them. The women are just trying to figure out how to be safe short of withdrawing from society.
Do you people have any idea what this will do to my organ harvesting business?
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?
Several orders of magnitude less than feminists claim.
No, it is not suggesting that every man is a despicable scum, it is suggesting that there is a reasonable chance that at least one man at a party is a despicable scum. And that seems like a reasonable suggestion.
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
Being able to say no to liquor is extremely easy.
It can be extremely hard to say no to alcohol in certain social settings --- and you don't have to be an alcoholic to know this.
Thanks for the story. Honestly.