Straws And Cups That Detect Date Rape Drugs
wgbhnews.org
wgbhnews.org
2. Obviously people do get drugged occasionally, the inventor seems to have had it happen to him
3. Unfortunately there seems to be no real evidence that GHB or ketamine are often used in sexual assaults, and even Rohypnol which has the worst reputation has not often been detected. A straw that could detect a drink that's stronger than you think it is might be more useful, AFAICT the number one date-rape drug is alcohol.
(I want to be absolutely clear here, I'm not saying date rape doesn't happen, I'm not saying that some really nasty people don't deliberately get others into pliable states to take advantage of them, but AFAICT the use of drugs in the way the media likes to run scare stories about is very uncommon)
It's the original and most effective date rape drug, and no one even really objects to people using it for that purpose.
Getting people drunk to get them to sleep with you isn't really /wrong./ Once you start using scary drugs that no one has ever heard of, then wow, that's something we can condemn. Especially since no one we know would ever do such a thing.
This is the straw man in the situation though - it's usually someone the victim knows.
(edit: I'm not really sure straw man is the right term here...)
On the one hand, it's basically what a lot of people just take as the norm. They think that's what you're supposed to do at bars. On the other, it also just happens to be a way to make someone much less resistant to doing things they would never do otherwise.
Christ.
They really do. Drunk consent isn't consent, and people leave themselves open to accusations of, and convictions for, rape if they have sex with drunk people.
Legally it is.
>people leave themselves open to accusations of, and convictions for, rape if they have sex with drunk people.
People are always open to accusations. I can't find evidence of a single conviction for someone consenting to sex while intoxicated. Only when causing the intoxication in the first place, without consent, does further consent get negated.
> Legally it is.
Not where I live.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/aug/21/ched-evans-loses-ra...
In April, the 23-year-old striker was jailed for five years for raping a teenager who was too drunk to consent to sex with him
Driver: "Hey man, mind if I run over your leg?" Drunk Person: "mfamhhhhmmhaha sure lesh pud it on youtubes" Driver: looks at camera "You hear that judge and jury?! Consent! Yeeehaw!"
Note you can kill all the people you want in a plain ole traffic accident with practically no punishment compared to using any other weapon... as long as you're not drunk. Heck they don't even municipal cite people for killing bicyclists around here, sometimes. Needless to say I don't ride on the roads or let my kids ride on the roads, that would be pretty dumb to do, given the prevailing conditions.
The issue with consent while drunk isn't about what you do to yourself while drunk: it is about hurting other people. You have the right to get drunk to the point of passing out in front of the stereo with The Cure's worst album at full blast, the dishes undone, leftovers on the stove and that still doesn't give anyone the right to steal your stereo, sharpie your face or fuck you (even if they shake you hard enough to get some vague affirmatory groan out of your body).
Do you acknowledge that there is a level of drunk where you can still sort of walk and talk but all that is really happening is you on autopilot trying to find your bed or just anywhere to sleep? Imagine being in this state among many acquaintances both new and old (which are the typical assailants). Imagine trying to find the safety of a bed and upon half-hearing a friend's offer in a loud place, saying "yes I want to go to bed", and that being misinterpreted? Compare this to being drunk, and seeking out the danger of driving home.
(I deliberately chose The Cure because I only know men who listen to them. Yes, society's norms frame women as passive, but it also makes them actual victims of sexual assault at alarming rates.)
I would agree that if one can "enthusiastically consent" then they are responsible for their actions. The problem is a lot of people would disagree with this, and the law seems murky on the subject. Also considering the fact that one could enthusiastically consent at the time but still be black-out drunk and thus have a different interpretation of how they ended up in bed with a guy.
If your concern is with people who are barely conscious, then we have no argument. However, I would say that the lines you draw in fact dodge the real question here. No one can reasonably consider a half-conscious person to offer consent. The question is really about people who are visibly drunk, not almost comatose, and actually give consent (enthusiastic or not). This is where the dangerous grey area lies. Many people claim that such a person cannot legally consent, whether enthusiastic or not. That is the real question here. I would like such a person's take on the difference between liability from driving and liability for a regrettable lay.
references
Arizona: A.R.S. §§ 13-1401 and 13-1406; Illinois: 720 Ill. Comp. Stat. 5/12-13; Kansas: K.S.A. § 21-3502; Maine: 17-A M.R.S. § 109; Missouri: R.S.Mo. §§ 566.040 and 566.061; and Wisconsin: Wis. Stat. § 940.225.
And claims these as case law for
> • Either statute or case law specifically outlaws having intercourse
> with a person who is too intoxicated to consent.
> In these states,
> the victim’s intoxication negates the element of consent, thereby
> showing that the sexual act occurred without consent.
Is an unconscious person too intoxicated to consent to consent? Most people would say yes, and I imagine the law would concur.
Is a person drifting in and out of consciousness too intoxicated to consent? Most people would say yes.
Is a person who's able to walk, but obviously drunk, too intoxicated to consent? What if you ask them to come to your place to have sex and they agree with a drunken "uhhh yeah uuuhhhh cooool... uuuhhh ok". This is sounding more like real consent but a lot of people would proceed with caution to avoid a bad situation and/or regret.
Is a person who's had a couple of drinks and is exhibiting increased outgoingness and reduced inhibitions too intoxicated to consent? This is where a lot of dates and hookups end up. Most people would say this is OK, but a zealous prosecutor with an axe to grind might be able to make charges stick.
And finally, one presumes that if you're below the legal limit for operating a motor vehicle, you are also able to consent to sex.
There are definitely laws about surreptitiously intoxicating someone, however, which may quickly lead to conviction if proven.
Uh what? Getting someone drunk so you can impair their ability to consent or so you can overpower them is most certainly wrong.
It is, sorry.
There's nothing wrong with two people having a few drinks and going to bed together. But it's at the very least creepy to plan to knock someone's inhibitions down that way, or to take advantage of them.
>> It's the original and most effective date rape drug, and no one even really objects to people using it for that purpose.
You've now gone beyond creepy.
--edit-- OK so I've read his other comments and it was clearly a comment on society and meant to be taken at anything but face value. I'll be the first to admit that in discussions like these I can easily suffer from a sense of humour failure, if not a complete lack of sarcasm detection.
If it was a comment on societal attitudes then cool, am on board.
Is there an objective test, that can be administered by a third party, to differentiate between these two cases? If not, then what?
Who cares? You know if you're being creepy or not.
He's saying that society doesn't view it as negatively as it should... You shouldn't need to lower someones inhibitions for them to sleep with you...
The very fact that you say "it's creepy to lower someones inhibitions that way" only serves to reinforce his point... It's not just "creepy" it's downright fucked up; and for a portion of society it is common-case usage.
Another reason the attitude you display here is alarming is that it may be difficult to tell the difference between a drunk person and a drugged person. It's not like the victim falls unconscious and the attacker carries them away. Someone who has been slipped GHB might be perceived by the people around them as having gotten drunk deliberately, for example.
You might almost think people like sex and alcohol from all this insanity. Next thing you know, they'll be opening up establishments where men and women go to get drunk and pick each other for sloppy drunk scores. That'll be the day...
I absolutely believe that it is wrong to rape someone, and that getting people drunk to get them to sleep with you is rape.
In my experience, society does not think that, which is why we use phrases like "date rape," and talk about "date rape drugs" without ever mentioning alcohol.
Or something. I'm glad you're not a terrible person.
Uncommon is pretty broad, if something as severe as being drugged happens to one person out of every 200 each night, it is "common" in my mind.
Wikipedia has links to a couple of studies. It says Rohypnol was detected in less than 1% of cases of sexual assault where drugging was suspected.
I obviously have no idea what you and your friends have seen or been through or what they may have been spiked with. I'm just saying that whenever actual figures are looked at the problem of drinks being spiked with drugs turns out to be far, far behind witting or unwitting consumption of alcohol as the reason for people being in a bad way.
This is in NO WAY whatsoever saying it's acceptable to abuse someone who's drunk, or that it's their fault. People should be free to get as trashed as they like without bad people doing bad things to them.
It may very well be that this stuff doesn't get tested or reported very often, in which case the most we can say is we don't have reliable data.
Rohypnol in particular should be easy to pick up, Flunitrazepam has a halflife of 18+ hours and at least one metabolite has a halflife of 36-200 hours. In fact according to this - http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/201894.pdf - it can be detected in urine for 5 days and hair for a month.
If people are unlikely to report, or if drugs that are metabolised faster are used then sure, we may not have good data. But then all we can really say is we don't have good data.
That might not mean what you think it means.
From http://www.drugs.com/rohypnol.html :
> It is difficult to estimate the number of Rohypnol-facilitated rapes in the United States. Very often, biological samples are taken from the victim at a time when the effects of the drug have already passed and only residual amounts remain in the body fluids. These residual amounts are difficult, if not impossible, to detect using standard screening assays available in the United States. If Rohypnol exposure is to be detected at all, urine samples need to be collected within 72 hours and subjected to sensitive analytical tests.
Now, the bit about "sensitive analytical tests" has me pretty worried. We are living in a nation where an awful lot of rape kits collected after the crime of rape are simply put on a shelf because there is no money to process them. I bet that "sensitive analytical tests" aren't even on the menu a lot of times.
I really want to stress that I don't think that in any way diminishes the awfulness of the crime, I just wonder if (like stranger danger) we don't overemphasise the worst-case at the cost of the mundane (people known to the victim, alcohol)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6122532
And well worth reviewing other literature on results from screenings conducted quickly after a suspected assault.
Focusing on "date rape drugs" presents a vastly inaccurate picture of the real risk factors, not least because it creates an implicit assumption that alcohol and common recreational drugs are not the major risks, when they are far more common and plenty capable of reducing inhibitions or inducing unconsciousness all on their own.
Perhaps a good analogy would be to anti-terror campaigns: we are drawn toward the uncommon and dramatic events, and focus our attention and efforts on them, when far more could be accomplished from dealing with more common but less "flashy" risks.
(another example with rape is the focus on "stranger danger", which creates an implicit assumption of safety in the company of people one already knows, when in fact most rapes are perpetrated by someone known to the victim rather than by strangers who leap from behind bushes)
> Focusing on "date rape drugs" presents a vastly inaccurate picture of the real risk factors
I don't disagree but I think a presentation regarding date rape drugs is normally given after alcohol has already been discussed. An educator who discussed date rape drugs first, or in isolation, would most certainly be Doing It Wrong.
A lot of what leads people to that inaccurate picture of the risk factors, I suspect, is the natural human tendency to assume that none of the people I know would ever do something like that. Not to mention the assumption that familiarity with alcohol implies some sort of mastery over it. You can lead a horse to data but you can't make him drink, or something.
>Uncommon is pretty broad, if something as severe as being drugged happens to one person out of every 200 each night, it is "common" in my mind.
But evidence suggests it is no where even close to that common. Alcohol on the other hand might very well be used more often than 1 in 200.
Do you have a link for that?
TL;DR: 1014 people claimed they were drugged and sexually assaulted. "In 21 cases (2%), a sedative or disinhibiting drug was detected..." So-called "date rape" drugs were a subset of these cases.
(Again, no judgement on those that choose to use drugs, I certainly do and I think that drug users are as deserving of protection as anyone else)
Can you elaborate at all? I'm curious because, as disgusting as it is, I can sort of understand the motivation of the standard date rape scenario with Rohypnol. What you're describing sounds more like the equivalent of someone spiking the punch... with Rohypnol? To what end?
Horrifying.
Shockingly once at a party I was offered to buy rohypnol. I was lurid. I certainly don't look like the type of person who would buy drugs, much less from a random stranger...
> I was lurid.
> ......^^^^^.
Still though, lurid may be an appropriate adjective.
That's not to say I expect everyone to be like me, but I guess it may go some way to explaining my attitude of "don't blame the drugs, blame the people". ANd now that I write that out I can see how much it looks like something the NRA might say.
It's a tricky area and no doubt.
Rohypnol/GHB are certainly used as date rape drugs, but they have an effect that is distinct from just more liquor.
I also don't think this guy's idea will work very well, and instead will create a false sense of security instead of just watching your drink, which is probably the reason cases of Rohypnol/GHB have declined in N. America since there's so much education about guarding your drink or tossing it if you leave it alone. Bouncers also provide benefit denial of this crime/scam, and will usually stop somebody walking out dragging a girl until they find her friends, at least here they do.
Another problem is I see criminals just bringing in their own straws and switching them while dumping in the drug. Bars are unlikely to order these glasses unless they are inexpensive, they go through so many broken glasses it's not worth it to them to swtich. Their bleach + high heat cleaning methods might render the protection useless too after a few washings.
It's a tricky problem, even before you consider false-positives and the false sense of security in general.
Also, if the technology involved is anything like the color-changing "field test" kits that cops use, false positives will be a problem.
An associate of mine was booked for "heroin possession" when an overzealous cop decided to test his aspirin during a traffic stop - he was released the instant he got a hold of a lawyer.
1) I assume the cups have to be disposable, as the strips probably don't work multiple times. Most bars I've been to don't use disposable cups.
2) Even if they did, it has to be cost effective for the bar to consider using them. If 1000 cups is $250 (0.25/cup) and you can get 10,000 normal cups for that price, that's going to probably factor into their decision.
3) The bar might be worried that having these cups might reflect poorly on their reputation. I can imagine people saying to themselves "Why is the bar using special glasses that detect date rape? Is date rape a problem at this bar?" When you introduce an item like this it might lead to speculation that there is a problem when really you're trying to be safe. It's like if you installed a metal detector at a club and put bars on the windows -- you might be doing it just to be safe, but your patrons might think "do things happen here that warrant security precautions like this"?
I suggest nail polish for two reasons. One is that it removes the need to carry specialized tools: once you've done your nails, you can test 10 drinks and leave the bottle at home. Not having to carry a tool is somewhat more convenient, but it also means the tool can't be forgotten, lost, stolen, or tampered with.
The other advantage is discretion. It's not difficult, with a setup like this, to test a drink without others knowing what you are doing. It could be argued that people shouldn't mind being tested, but from a pragmatic standpoint, the kind of person who spikes a drink is the kind of person who could very easily become dangerous if they know they're being put to the test. A discreet test, therefore, is a safer test, and since these tests are supposed to be all about safety, it follows that a discreet test is also a better test.
Invents? I thought this has been around for quite awhile now? I remember hearing about things like this years ago. Maybe it was just the idea, and had not yet been actually a physical product though?
It was also invented by scientists in Tel Aviv in August 2012: http://www.algemeiner.com/2012/08/24/tel-aviv-researchers-de...
Apparently also in August 2011 by the same scientists: http://www.geekosystem.com/straw-detects-drugs/
My guess is that he is banking that the patent has value to cup manufacturers but the cup manufacturers probably don't want to hire a slew of scientist for R&D. They just want to make and sell cups.
Just before going upstairs she just calls to the "warden" and if she is speaking coherent ... do whatever you like. If not - the trusted party can take a cab or signal the police.
I'm with you on this. Nothing stupider than slapping a technical solution on a social problem and calling it good.
Hmm, going out to drink unknown substances out of other peoples cups and letting other people mix potions for you and drinking out of cups people leave laying around unsupervised for others to mess with, is unsafe now, so "open mouth and out comes ridiculous cross between rube goldberg, life magazine predictions from 75 years ago about the future, and star trek technobabble". No, its just an obsolete, dangerous, dumb way to spend your time. You wanna do something stupid, fine, have fun, but don't come crying to me about how us smart people "have" to do something about your dumb decisions.
Kinda like free love was cool before HIV. Or going drunk driving was a great idea when you drove your own horse, but really dumb idea after cars. Sorry to break it to all the whiners but like it or not we live in the 2010s so deal with it or suffer. Going out drinking means pretty scary odds of date rape. So unless you're dense as neutronium, don't do it.
Before the chorus of how dare I blame the victim, well I have the right to blame them because I'm not an idiot. Going out drinking might have been fun in ye olden daze but its not ye olden daze anymore, its dumb and dangerous and THAT is why I have the right to blame the victim. I didn't get this brilliant knowledge from a reveled religion or a secret sauce, but from incessant whining of journalist reports, any other moron out there should be able to figure out the same thing I figured out, which is not to go out drinking anymore. Too bad for the victim if they're too dumb or lazy to think like the human being they are. Actions do have consequences.
I do have genuine pity for like "the first" date rape victims, how could she have possibly known and she'd not to blame. But we've had a lot of journalism since then. Not for some idiot who went out last night with a virtual bullseye painted on their fun parts, knowing fully whats probably about to happen, knowing that when the inevitable happens, they can just blame "society" or maybe blame the "techies for not inventing a cure"... anyone to blame but themselves.
There are perfectly good social solutions to this social problem. BYOB. Carry a fashionable hip flask. Strange as it may sound, you can socialize with friends without consuming liquids of any sort (insane concept, huh?). Take up an intoxicant that's safer than alcohol and harder (impossible?) to spike, like weed. "Back when I was a kid" we got totally drunk BEFORE we went out, who wants to repeatedly pay $7 a glass for something I can get drunk on at home for 75 cents/can, especially when you're a poor student. Only get drunk with actual friends at home instead of criminal strangers at a bar who want to take advantage of you. We're all smart here, its not very hard to figure out. These "revolutionary" ideas might negatively impact someones entrenched profitable business model? Tough cookies. Cry me a river.
But don't spew random tech all over an outmoded idiotic behavior and call it brilliant. Its just obsolete thrashing about. Wanna suffer? Fine go out and do it. I'm not going to feel any pity when the inevitable happens.
Don't worry, people are still going to find the numerous other ways to act stupid and hurt themselves.
I don't think the danger to self is a big differentiatory between drunk horseback riding vs. drunk driving, rather, the difference in the external costs is.
People keep mentioning a bar's reputation, but at the end of the day if this is a real problem for your bar, your reputation is already screwed. This seems to me like a very pro-active way of working on fixing an already broken reputation.
At first glance, the same criticism holds for a bar that has these ("you think your patrons are rapists?" or "that place is so bad it needs those cups" spring to mind). But I feel like that's just a marketing challenge.
Instead, I think the company selling the cups could market them with focus on the avoidance of sexual assault and make their customers (bars/clubs) look like community leaders. Maybe they'll even have a cool little symbol to plaster beneath the neon signs. I have a hunch that that symbol could sway more customers than the availability of Bud Light.
Just some of my thoughts.
(Note I was kidding)
Going out drinking is no longer a sane activity. So don't.
Either one could lead to a dangerous situation.
I hope he figures it out before they start trolling him. My friend's “invention” also covered a product on beer-mats and serviettes that would change colour under the same circumstances, unfortunately the patent he was facing down was so broadly written that it covered basically anything that could be used to detect daterape drugs in a drink by indicating it somehow.
Surely the patent could have been battled, but he wasn't in the financial position to do so.
- is the problem big enough for bars to care about?
- do cup producers increase their rev/profit with this cup?
There's a chance, though, that you may be calling low quality ethanol alcohol rubbing alcohol, and I'm just missing it.
And it's useless to detect rape drugs because the biggest rape drug is alcohol.
A straw that detects a handful of numerous dangerous substances is about as useful at its claim of producing "safety" as TSA agents molesting grandmas and teen girls at airports. I'm rather proud of this analogy.