More than three years ago, Mike Abramson went to a club in Boston, and after taking a few sips of his first drink, he quickly knew that he’d been drugged. His friends helped him return home, and the unfortunate experience inspired Abramson—a patent attorney—to invent a product to help prevent other people from becoming victims of date rape drugs. Abramson came up with a concept for a cup and drinking straw that can detect when a drink has been spiked with drugs by changing color.
It’s not clear whether Abramson was the intended target of the spiked drink at the Boston nightclub — in all likelihood he wasn’t. About 400,000 women — roughly one fourth of rape victims — are poisoned with drug-laced drinks each year, and Abramson’s invention could help reduce that number. Date rape drugs, like Flunitrazepam, ketamine or Rohypnol, are colorless, odorless and tasteless, so it’s nearly impossible to detect when they’ve been dropped in your drink. But Abramson’s new cups act as a litmus test for your drink, changing color when they detect one of those drugs.
With the help of his former professors at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Abramson formed DrinkSavvy, a company that produces cups, straws and even cocktail stirrers that change color when they come into contact with date rape drugs, or “roofies.” After raising more than $50,000 on the crowdfunding site IndieGoGo, Abramson and his team have developed prototypes for their drinkware, which are due to be released next month. According to Core77, the DrinkSavvy team hopes to have a product ready for sale to the general public by 2014.
via Core77
