Israeli Firm Invents World’s First Date Rape Straw

Two Israeli inventors want to take on a phenomena that is growing in prevalence every year. To protect women in the place they are most likely to be sexually assaulted, the Israelis have invented the Date Rape Straw, a device which allows a woman to test her drink to see if someone put some of the most common date rape drugs inside.

This year, the statistic is that one in six women will be sexually assaulted before she dies. No one could have expected the number to be so high. One of the most common places that women are going to be assaulted, or at least the place where the assault will begin, is at a nightclub. Everyone has seen the Public Service Announcements, a girl heads to the dance floor to have a dance or turns her back on her drink so that she can talk to a friend and then somehow a pill, powder or liquid finds its way into the drink. She wakes up the next day with no clue what happened the night before. If she heads to the hospital, she finds out she was raped.

Drugs like GHB and Ketamine tend to be odorless, tasteless and can render a victim unconscious in a matter of 15 minutes. If the rapist knows what he is doing he can assault a woman and she will have no idea that she even had sex that evening.

Well Tel Aviv University Professor Fernando Patolsky and his business partner Michael Ioffe invented the Date Rape Straw to make sure women have a tool to fight back against sexual assault.

The straw looks just like any other straw you will find at a bar. The difference is that when it finds itself in the presence of Ketamine or GHB it will change colors, alerting the woman that her drink has been tainted. The pair also pan to have the straw detect Rohypnol (ruffies) in the near future.

Patolsky and Ioffe say their plans are to have the product on the market within a year.