New Nail Polish Alerts Wearers To Date Rape Drugs 595
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.
The world we live in. (Score:5, Insightful)
The world we live in. (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re: The world we live in. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm willing to bet strait alcohol is the most common one.
Re: The world we live in. (Score:5, Insightful)
Being able to say no to liquor is extremely easy.
Being able to say no to GHB that's been slipped into your drink isn't.
Never as easy as it sounds. (Score:3)
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.
Re: The world we live in. (Score:4, Interesting)
Being able to say no to liquor is extremely easy
Yes, it is. However: if a woman has had too much? That's still not an excuse to take advantage of her. I don't know about anyone else, but I've had women want to have sex with me while they were significantly drunk, and I just won't do it because I know they'll regret it later, and I don't want to be That Guy. Oh, and for the record: Women should not take advantage of guys who are too drunk, either. Of course there's a double standard, as always, which is also bullshit, but that's another subject entirely.
Re: (Score:3)
That would mean staring at your beverage the entire night rather than socializing.
This is amazing. The message should always be, "never rape" instead of "don't get raped."
Re: The world we live in. (Score:4, Insightful)
It already is.
But non-idiots mitigate risks as best they can - trading off against convenience and so on of course, sometimes with convenience winning by miles.
The message is "never burglarize" and no one thinks advising people to lock their doors somehow changes that message.
The message is "don't abduct children" and no one thinks that "stranger danger" type idiocy in schools changes that message.
Why does any mention of mitigating rape risks always get portrayed as undermining "don't rape".
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Because no one wants to take any responsibility for themselves ....
Re: The world we live in. (Score:4, Insightful)
I know a few guys who are certain a woman slipped them a Viagra and one that knows since it went horribly wrong and he ended up going to the ER.
Re: The world we live in. (Score:5, Interesting)
Ok, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say you're a completely stupid fuck. For one thing I know someone who had roofies used on her. She knew a member of the frat since they were little kids and he still pulled a "bros before hoes" on her. (Yes I know he was probably the rapist.) I have also stumbled on someone in downtown Portland who had been given something. Had one drink and she couldn't walk properly. Roofies are not a "moral panic block", they are widely available, tasteless and odorless drug used by sociopaths to rape people. Do you read the news? Do know who many women are raped each year on campuses in the US? Take your useless, ignorant, thoughtless, opinion and have some frat boy tape it to his dick and shove it up your ass and see what you "think" about it then.
Re: The world we live in. (Score:4, Insightful)
I know someone who had roofies used on her.
It's far more likely that you know someone who claims that happened to her. She may even believe it. It's far more likely though, that she drank more than she wants to admit.
Do know who many women are raped each year on campuses in the US?
Yes, and according to the FBI, it's a hell of a lot fewer than you and your fellow SJWs pretend.
Re: The world we live in. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: The world we live in. (Score:4, Informative)
if all rapes were reported, we may well see that men rape women no more often than women rape men
I don't think that is in any way very likely.
According to a 2010 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 1 in 5 women and 1 in 71 men in theed States have been raped. The actual number is likely higher, experts say, as incidents of sexual violence are severely underreported in the United States -- particularly among male victims.
Against his will: Female-on-male rape [cnn.com]
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The actual number is likely higher, experts say, as incidents of sexual violence are severely underreported in the United States -- particularly among male victims.
Exactly the point I was making. Thank you.
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Re: The world we live in. (Score:4, Informative)
Rape apologia on a tech site!? GASP
There was no rape apology there.
There's a huge difference between being slipped a mickey and being extremely intoxicated.
Which is why people are not allowing you to conflate the two. Some times alcohol hits you harder than you expect. A lot of women think this means they were roofied (because people like you tell them there's roofies around every corner).
Re: The world we live in. (Score:5, Insightful)
Ok, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say you're a completely stupid fuck. For one thing I know someone who had roofies used on her. She knew a member of the frat since they were little kids and he still pulled a "bros before hoes" on her. (Yes I know he was probably the rapist.) I have also stumbled on someone in downtown Portland who had been given something. Had one drink and she couldn't walk properly. Roofies are not a "moral panic block", they are widely available, tasteless and odorless drug used by sociopaths to rape people. Do you read the news? Do know who many women are raped each year on campuses in the US? Take your useless, ignorant, thoughtless, opinion and have some frat boy tape it to his dick and shove it up your ass and see what you "think" about it then.
The point the parent was trying to make you asked right back in the form of a question. Yes, we know how many women (and men, sexist much?) are raped each year on campuses. Care to tell me what percentage of those involved anything other than straight alcohol? Yeah, I thought so.
Yes, we all know it's a problem, it's simply not anywhere near as powerful or prevelant in rape culture as you or anyone else make it out to be. Alcohol is a drug. Why is it people seem to forget that, or excuse it because they don't want it to interfere with their chosen lifestyle? Isn't it ironic when everything is bad and evil except when it's a vice of yours. Easiest solution to avoid this? Don't consume drugs. Of any kind. That would include your beloved precious fucking alcohol and your lame-ass excuses to keep drinking it in order to have a "good time".
Re: The world we live in. (Score:5, Insightful)
I know a guy, a former friend (basically because he does this kind of shit) that will meet a girl at a bar or club, take her to a table that has no visibility of the bar, and buy himself a beer and her a drink. Innocent enough, just buying a girl a drink, right? Well, his game, and the reason why the table must not be able to see the bar, is that he keeps buying her drinks, bringing his beer with him on every trip to the bar (he never lets the waitress bring drinks), but, instead of getting himself another beer, he gets a glass of water and refills his empty beer bottle before returning to the table. She thinks he's drinking as much as him, making him less of a threat.
Scum. Absolute scum. After I learned what he was doing (he was proud of it when he told me) I did tell a few bartenders at places he was known to frequent but they didn't seem to care, which, I suppose, makes them scum, as well.
Re: The world we live in. (Score:4, Insightful)
frat is just an abbreviation for fraternity. What is the distinction you are trying to make?
And they have a terrible reputation, which they have earned.
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Re: The world we live in. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The world we live in. (Score:4, Interesting)
No, he wants to live in a world where people take responsibility for their own safety. Knowing that rapists are out there, and knowing that keeping your drink in hand at and in view at all times is a simple and effective preventative measure, it is irresponsible not to take that simple measure.
Hell, a girl I was dating brought me a drugged drink when I was 17; it wasn't even alcohol and we weren't even at a club, it was kool-aid and we were at someone's house, babysitting their 3 kids. I learned, then, that you get your own drinks and keep them in hand and in view at all times, even around people you trust. It's not your fault if you get raped if you don't do that (of course, the rapist made the decision to rape) but it is your fault you didn't at least take steps to prevent it (you made the decision not to).
I don't blame myself for the girl's actions; after all, I didn't drug my own drink, she did. And I didn't rape myself after I passed out, she did. I don't even blame myself for trusting her; I had known her for over a year at that point and she had always been good to me. Hell, she wouldn't even have had to rape me, I was willing, so the thought never even crossed my mind. I let my guard down, and I do blame myself for that; but, at the same time, life isn't worth living if you don't let people in at some point. So, instead of becoming a woman-hating shut-in, I considered what I could have done differently to prevent it from happening, and I learned from it. In case you haven't absorbed the information by now, that is to get my own drinks and keep them in hand and in view; that allows you to still trust people, until they give you a reason not to, while allowing you to quickly and easily see that you have reason not to trust that particular person *before* something bad happens.
It's not perfect, bad shit can and will still happen, but by taking mitigating steps, at least you've prevented one form of bad shit. Really, the same reason you lock your doors, despite the fact that a criminal can just break a window.
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Re:The world we live in. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm trying to come up with a way to point out that the world is fully of humans doing all sorts of awful things to each other, without it seem like condoning the date rapists as being "not so bad" or whatever.
I couldn't. Because there's something uniquely shitty about disabling and taking advantage of someone who's already going on a date with you. They went out of their way to spend time with you, and you just go "not good enough" and betray the hell out of them.
Re:The world we live in. (Score:4, Informative)
I couldn't. Because there's something uniquely shitty about disabling and taking advantage of someone who's already going on a date with you. They went out of their way to spend time with you, and you just go "not good enough" and betray the hell out of them.
While that is uniquely shitty, it's not all that "date rape" drugs are used for. It's not at all uncommon for them to be used on strangers at a bar.
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True enough, but a huge majority of rape is acquaintance rape. I tend to avoid emphasizing stranger rape, because that's the stereotype that people already tend to over-focus on.
Re:The world we live in. (Score:4, Insightful)
Acquaintance rape seems like an unplanned thing that happens over alcohol.
While this is the stereotype, the truth is that normal acquaintances are not rapists, and rapists often stalk their victims, becoming their acquaintances, testing boundaries, and then attacking.
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Would it help to know that it is largely an urban legend?
Drink spiking with Rohypnol and GHB on a large scale that people are imaging is not real.
In my city, a study was done on a large number of young people arriving at the city hospital (free A&E) with suspected drink-spiking.
Not one had any traces in their blood. Maybe some had been spiked with extra alcohol, but mostly is was young women not taking responsibility for their own excessive drinking (or pills).
Similar data from the UK:
http://www.telegra [telegraph.co.uk]
Re:The world we live in. (Score:4, Insightful)
Agreed.
Looking over the USDOJ stats, it seems Rohypnol is a regional problem with relatively low use count. In many places it is listed as "the least accessible date-rape drug", in other regions it is a suspected factor in hundreds of rape cases. The numbers show it going from about 1000 suspected cases nationally in 1997 to it's modern level of being suspected use in 1.5% of rape cases, a few thousand cases per year. Consider: how many hundreds of thousands of dates where a drink is consumed are there every year? Millions of drinks? Hundreds of millions of drinks? On a per-drink basis the number of uses is a very small percentage. Since it is small as a percentage that suggests going after bigger percentages for the bigger reductions.
While any number bigger than 0 is a problem, as a statistic these two drugs are not used in a high percentage of rapes, and date rapes themselves are relatively rare. I'm not trying to trivialize it. As the parent post suggests, a very rare problem does not lend itself to a TSA-like drug test where millions of drinks are tested for something detectable only a few thousand times annually at a maximum. My rough estimate is around 100M drinks across the nation over the course of a year, roughly 3000 testable contaminated drinks, so 0.0003% of date drinks, or one in every 30,000. That's a lot of useless fingernail-dips.
I suppose if you do go that route, of the new products this one [drinksavvy.com] that continuously monitors your drink by the cup and straw changing color seems much better than nail polish you need to dip frequently. It is both passive and continuous. Someone could slip the drug in after you dunk your fingernail, but the sensor on the container or the straw is 'always on'.
Re:The world we live in. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a clever bit of science, but unfortunately, I fear the young ladies who are most likely in need of this product are probably not going to have the foresight to wear it. If they had such foresight in the first place, it seems like perhaps they wouldn't be in a position where someone they shouldn't trust could surreptitiously slip them drugs in their drinks.
I'm not "blaming the victim", mind you. No should be subject to drugging and rape regardless of circumstances, and the perps and deserve all the wrath our legal system can throw at them. I'm just pointing out that some people are more prone to making poor life choices. I'm sure we've all met them before. We feel really bad when these people are eaten by wolves, but we can't help but thinking: "was it really the best idea to go out in a suit made of meat and barbeque sauce?"
The big problem is that if you're drugged, you may not be in a suitable state of mind to fight off a would-be rapist even if you know you've been drugged. The best defense is, as always, for women to watch out for their friends when at bars and parties. Don't go wandering off alone after heavy drinking with a guy you don't know or trust. That's asking for trouble in about a million different ways. Drugged drinks are just another type of potential trouble among many.
Re:The world we live in. (Score:5, Insightful)
I hate to break it to you, but that is exactly what you are doing. You are also claiming that only woman without much brains or ability to think for themselves and plan ahead like to have a good time in public.
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One who is aware of this could check up to 10 drinks for their friends. Through effectiveness, that one might be able to convince others. Everything starts with a few who convince others.
Look at Google, for example. It used to be a nerd-only thing (I remember a time before Google was). Now, I can't think of anyone who doesn't understand when someone says "just google it".
But, really, if you want to educate people, teach them to drink only from a bottle and to keep their thumb over the neck when they aren'
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Yes, indeed. Completely unethical fear-mongers all around that blow irrelevant risks all out of proportion, and countless stupid sheep that fall for that. Truly a sad state of affairs.
As someone who went to NC State (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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That is not consistent with the current policy:
http://policies.ncsu.edu/policy/pol-10-00-01/ [ncsu.edu]
Re:As someone who went to NC State (Score:4, Informative)
From that page(bolding mine):
All INVENTIONS arising from (1) research conducted with University-administered funds, (2) work within the INVENTOR’S SCOPE OF EMPLOYMENT, or (3) the SUBSTANTIAL USE OF UNIVERSITY RESOURCES are owned by the University.
I guess the relevant thing is whether they used university facilities to develop their chemical. My guess is that they did.
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That doesn't make any sense. You pay tuition to use those resources. Your output should be yours.
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Probably should, but not every policy ends up being just.
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1. SAS wasn't created as an undergrad project, it was a large, multi-university and government agency collaboration with Professor Goodnight, at that time a member of the faculty, one of the researchers.
2. Universities spinoff new companies all the time: this is hardly the first or last time that students and faculty at a university have used their research to start new companies. Nor is NC State particularly unique in this IP clause, and this clause hasn't stopped start ups in
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I said "at least for engineers" because I was an engineer, and that's how I got exposed to the policy. And I apologize for my factual errors.
Discreet? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Discreet? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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It's more discreet than using a special straw, which seems to have been the predecessor (at least in spirit) of this new method.
I wish we didn't need something like this (Score:5, Insightful)
C'mon guys, knock this shit off already!
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
Lets see..
False rape claims and 'honor councils' leading men to just give up on women all together
http://washingtonexaminer.com/... [washingtonexaminer.com]
43% of men have been ''Raped'' under what the feminist movement keeps trying to push a rape claim as.
http://time.com/37337/nearly-h... [time.com]
Would you like to take a rethink if its 'Men are creepy bastards' or 'Humans are creepy ass bastards and bitches'
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RE: 'Men are creepy bastards':
Here, let me fix that for you, since you seem to be paraphrashing me without my permission: 'SOME men are creepy bastards'.
Also: I said: We have to police our own. How about we clean up our own house before criticizing the cleanliness of someone else's? Honestly, what kind of 'civilization' do we really have, where this shit goes on at all anymore?
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But the police don't prevent rape. They apprehend rapists after the offense. Rape can be pretty traumatic and in some cases is life changing. This needs to be addressed before the Rape happens.
The proposal doesn't seem to be about arresting the perpetrators but in making sure guys don't act when situations arise (so to speak).
And of course, arrests after the fact should already be happening.
[John]
Re:I wish we didn't need something like this (Score:5, Interesting)
Why do enough members of my own gender have to be such creepy bastards that we need something like this to be developed?
Well, it's not actually that complicated. There's a few common psychological threads that tend to unite serial rapists. Pyschopathy/sociopathy/anti-social personality disorder(whatever you feel like calling it) is one. People who just can't imagine another persons' perspective at all tend to be capable of some pretty shitty things for pretty stupid reasons.
Another is a flexible definition of rape. They tend to look for an excuse for why something "doesn't count" as rape. So they blame "mixed signals" or "unreasonable rejection" or "playing games" or similar kinds of behavior. People tend to be excellent rationalizes, and after the first rape, serial rapists tend to start finding any excuse.
(Oh, and don't mistake "serial rapists" for the common image of stranger violently raping women on the street, most serial rapists still engage in acquaintance rape. That's a pretty important distinction.)
Re:I wish we didn't need something like this (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not just people who have serious mental defects, it's people who might otherwise be normal human beings. It's what some people call "rape culture", the fact that a lot of guys don't really see anything particularly wrong with pressuring girls for sex or treating them as disposable sex objects so it isn't that much of a leap to go as far as drugging them. I mean, if plying them with alcohol so they are less inhibited is okay...
Once you become away of it you start to notice how prevalent it is in western culture. A few years ago there was an advert for pain medication where a women told her husband she didn't want sex that night because she had a headache. The guy produces the pills, "problem" solved, and the woman looks... Well, in all honestly the actress looked like she was resigned to being raped that night, by the look on her face. Going back much further if you watch this scene from Goldfinger [youtu.be] it's supposed to be... romantic? but Bond basically forces her to have sex with him.
Women are often portrayed as either wanting this behaviour or as deserving it. Female characters tend to be manipulative, using their looks and the promise of sex to get what they want. It gives guys the impression that if they meet a girl, she is attractive and dresses in anything lower cut that a turtleneck, she is trying to manipulate them. If they go along with it and maybe buy her a drink or two they have "paid" and expect something in return. Changing her mind or wanting to go slowly is just a rip-off.
It's really screwed up when you start to look at it.
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Why do enough members of my own gender have to be such creepy bastards that we need something like this to be developed?
Because those are the types of people we reward with powerful political positions and high paying jobs. Such is the power of charisma. The psychos are loaded with it.
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Simple: They are not. This is profiteering from irrational fears.
Re:I wish we didn't need something like this (Score:4, Insightful)
No need to paint the male gender as a whole as being filled with sociopaths. It's just the law of large numbers at work. There's maybe 30 million American men in the age rage that are likely to pick up srange women; if just 1/10 % of them are sociopathic predators that's 30,000 predators; and since they *are* predators they'll be overrepresented in young women's encounters with men in pick-up scenarios. Small numbers can produce disproportionate problems. In this case it represents numbers the actions of such a small proportion of men that our ideas about how normal people act aren't a reliable guide.
Drink spiking is a very rare crime. Most studies that look for evidence of it find very little. The highest I found was a government study which found date rape drugs in 4.5% of the cases from four sexual assault clinics. Note this is 4.5% of the cases where the assault occurred, so we're not talking about 4.5% of encounters, we're talking 4.5% of rapes. 4.5% is certainly high enough to be a concern in certain situations, like residential parties at a college. In such a situation a date rape drug detector might actually have some utility, even though it addresses relatively rare actions by a tiny proportion of men.
A bigger concern than what we think of as a "date rape drug" is alcohol itself. The same study that found date rape drugs in 4.5% of sexual assault samples found alcohol in 55%. This result is consistently found across studies: alcohol is very frequently associated with sexual assault -- around half of the time. This is especially concerning because some people (men and women both) don't believe that surreptitiously incapacitating someone with alcohol in order to have sex is rape. They don't distinguish ethically between two people getting drunk and having sex and one of them slipping extra alcohol into a drink.
But the fact remains most men wouldn't do something like that. But that doesn't preclude the possibility that a woman might often encounter the few remaining men who would. A typical man has sex with a small number of women many times; a man who has sex with a large number of women only once is bound to be encountered by women disproportionately often.
Re:This is Slashdot . . . (Score:5, Interesting)
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In 14 years practising emergency medicine (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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well wouldn't you expect GHB to be hard to detect since it occurs naturally anyway in the body and the body is excellent at eliminating it? I have taken it myself, it onsets in 10 minutes if the dose is large enough, and is pretty much back to baseline within an hour, its doubtful anyone in real disress makes it there fast enough to be reliably tested.
That said, I have little doubt you are mostly correct that its very few. Having personally gotten myself to debilitated states on both GHB and Alcohol, I woul
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This person is an MD and knows all that. The labs of course will not run meaningless tests. If he "says 1 case in 14 years", you better believe that he knows what he is talking about.
That said, I completely agree that the alcohol is more of a problem, and that this may well increase risky behavior.
Re:In 14 years practising emergency medicine (Score:5, Informative)
it seems to me that under the circumstances where a woman 'comes to' and can't even remember what happened (not to mention probably still feeling mentally/emotionally impaired from the chemical hangover) there would be an even higher incidence of the rapes going unreported.
it may still be possible that drug-facilitated rape occurs with less frequency than feared, but i see no ability to reach that conclusion logically from your estimation.
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95% of marketing is convincing people they need your product. In very few cases, do they actually need it
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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 k
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Says the Anonymous Coward. Without any kind of reference to reliable statistics your anecdote is utterly worthless I'm afraid. Could be completely made up.
I'm not saying you are wrong, merely that an anonymous anecdote with no data to back it up shouldn't be modded "informative".
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In 40 years of living on this planet, I've never had a heart attack. And no one I've personally known has had one. Therefore, heart attacks never happen. Ever. To anyone.
Alternatively, we could learn the difference between "anecdote" and "statistics".
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Oh come off your fantasy planet. You're making it seem like all men are honest and all women are liars. Did you get accused once and now are on a crusade to prove that rape doesn't exist? And what were you doing rifling through someone's purse, that certainly doesn't give you any high ground. You've got a chip on your shoulder so big you can't walk straight.
nice idea (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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The thing is that these cases are so rare they are mostly an urban myth. Yes, they do happen, but it is far more likely to be run over by a car on the way to or from the bar. Getting drugged by way of your drink is _not_ a relevant risk, just like getting killed by a terrorist or "stranger danger" are not relevant risks. They merely get this attention because some people are using the idea to manipulate people.
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'terrorist' acts either go reported (due to their obvious ex-post nature) or are "thwarted" by those who have a vested interest in trumping up the whole scenario. in the date-rape scenario, there is no military-industrial-complex that stands to gain from people believing the stories... granted, others might be motivated to do so, but not nearly to the same
A few issues with this... (Score:3)
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?
Re:A few issues with this... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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And I still can't help but find it gross, and not all drinks have a high alcohol content, and you'd be surprised what's under your fingernails -- cba to find the oblig XKCD.
Re: A few issues with this... (Score:2)
She wouldn't have to roll up her sleeve and dunk like a proctologist. A quick discreet swipe with her little finger would be fine. Seriously, how can anyone be shitting on this idea.
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> Why nail-polish? Why not just use the strips?
Easy, it reduces the steps required between returning to your drink or realizing you have forgotten to watch it, and doing the test. It removes....barriers. If you have to go into your pocket or purse to remove test strips, you are less likely to want to do it as often as you should....it could also be seen as insulting to whoever you are with that you don't trust them.
> doesn't anyone see a problem with sticking your fingers in your drink?
Not to me, but
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Here's an idea! (Score:2)
A How about the complete fucks who make Rohypnol just put indelible blue dye in it that also passes through to urine? Oh yeah because they are complete fucks. We should just make chemically assisted rape punishable by death.
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Threatening punishment, regardless of magnitude, has no effect here. There people are already deranged. "The law" is completely unable to solve these kinds of problems. It can make things worse though. Example: People that are afraid they will rape some child but have not done so (yet), are unable to get help as the law stupidly requires doctors to report them. The law is not a prevention tool. It is about revenge, and that is not helping the victims one bit in most cases.
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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.
Allergies... Can they expand the detection? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Is this really necessary as a mass-market product? (Score:2)
I thought that Rohypnol had been regulated so heavily that very few people can get their hands on it, and that those who can are also capable of getting something stronger and harder to detect. To me, this sounds like giving people an easy way to test for polonium poisoning in their food - sure, it might help if you're someone who has pissed off a foreign intelligence service (or the Russian government) but it's a non-issue for the vast majority of people... that and if they really want you dead, they have
Re:Is this really necessary as a mass-market produ (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
If that is necessary, all is lost anyways (Score:2)
Seriously, if a dating-scene is messed up enough for that to be an actual risk, the only sane thing is to leave it and don't look back. Somebody that is likely to put this stuff in your drink can just wait a little longer and force you to get dosed, at knife or gun-point, with much the same effect. And as soon as a few of these scumbags have gotten caught by this nail-polish, the others _will_ wise up.
On the minus-side, this can lead to less caution by the ladies and hence is likely counter-productive.
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Re:Seriously, we're not rapists.... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Re:Seriously, we're not rapists.... (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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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.
Re:Seriously, we're not rapists.... (Score:5, Insightful)
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
Re:Seriously, we're not rapists.... (Score:5, Insightful)
But that is a societal problem.
So is the need for this product.
Re:Seriously, we're not rapists.... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Oh snap!
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Save a sample you ignorant fuck. That's what labs are for.
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Whit what they do to those "presumed innocent" in sexual cases these days, that could get really expensive.
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Full authenticated recording of her giving consent and full authenticated recording of the act or she does not get any. Seriously, with it being this easy to successfully make false rape claims, it may be time to give up on women altogether.
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Seriously? Never heard of the Duke Lacrosse Team that was falsely accused of rape?
[John]
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I am sure they can test for that too.
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You are totally factually right but also absolutely wrong! Isn't paradox fun!
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