DrinkSavvy: Date Rape Drugs Detected By New Crowdfunded Cups, Straws

Next month DrinkSavvy will start shipping cups and straws that can detect so-called date rape drugs dropped into your drink. If your tasty adult beverage has been spiked with GHB, Rohypnol, or Ketamine, then the cup or straw will change color.

You can check out the basic idea in the photo up top. If one of the date rape drinks is on-board, the cup develops these weird red stripes to clue you into the fact that there’s something wrong.

The straw simply changes from clear to red.

Inventor Michael Abramson is on a media push this month to let you know that the DrinkSavvy products are hitting the market.

When he was crowdfunding the project on Indiegogo, he revealed that he himself got roofied by some unknown evildoer. The project easily attracted more than the $50,000 goal.

With the help of two Worcester Polytechnic Institute chemists, Abramson has now developed shippable cups and straws.

It’s certainly an advance on drug expert Ronald Siegel’s advice in 1992’s Fire In The Brain to drink beverages containing cranberry juice to partly counteract the effects of ketamine. It might not stop the assault, but you might remember enough to be able to testify against your attacker.

I was never sure why it was necessarily in the victim’s best interest to remember the trauma. But, just in case, a lot of women drank a lot of Cosmopolitans in the 1990s.

Or at least that’s what I kinda remember. The cranberry juice might be good for the memory, but the vodka doesn’t necessarily help.

All nervous kidding aside, DrinkSavvy said that they want the cups to become the new safety standard for bars. It might even work for the college crowd and house parties.

But I think grown-ups who want their drinks in the proper glassware will be better served by the straws.

Here are a couple of 2012 video reports from DrinkSavvy’s Indiegogo campaign:

Abramson said that DrinkSavvy glassware will be free to rape crisis centers.

So what do you think? Are you going to give the DrinkSavvy products a try?

[DrinkSavvy demo cups photo via their Facebook page]