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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Re:I wish we didn't need something like this (Score:2, Informative)
The police have to take her statement if she claims a crime took place, regardless of how ludicrous. If I went to the police and said I saw a UFO land, Bill Clinton exit, who then murdered Family Guy's Lois Griffin, and finally flew away, the police would take my statement.
The fact they take a statement doesn't mean they'd follow up with an investigation or arrest, let alone do anything that would result in a prosecution.
How many women are raped each year on campus? (Score:2, Informative)
Several orders of magnitude less than feminists claim. [usnews.com]
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: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]
Re: The world we live in. (Score:2, Informative)
1 in 5 women will get sexually assaulted in her life time.
1 in 5 homes will not get burglarized in their entire existence.
Blurred Lines hit #1 on the pop charts. The repeated stories about guys who get away with rape even after it's been reported and there's solid evidence for it. Guys like MMA star War Machine(God help me, that's his legal name) telling people that his ex-GF is his property.
There's all sorts of cultural influences telling men that they're entitled to women's bodies. In essence, we're teaching our children that rape is OK. It's called Rape Culture.
Here's Rape Culture 101 [shakesville.com]
And yes, there's all sorts of antisemitic influences in our culture. Including saying someone "Jewed" you out of money. But that's another rant.
Re:The world we live in. (Score:3, Informative)
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.telegraph.co.uk/new... [telegraph.co.uk]