Hacker News Reader

Comment by Nursie | Hacker News Reader

1. Awesome invention, straws that detect adulterants and change colour

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)

View on HN

Regarding #3, what data are you going off to say that Rohypnol has not been detected, and that drugging overall is uncommon? I have experienced it twice in the past 18 months through friends whom I have drank with many times, and had a very obvious reaction to one drink which often had been bought for them or left on a table/bar at some point that evening. Unless someone poured them a drink comprised of 6+ shots worth of liquor, there is no way they would have gone through the change they went through in that one drink. Also, if it had been that much alcohol, it would have been noticed in taste.

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.

>> Regarding #3, what data are you going off to say that Rohypnol has not been detected, and that drugging overall is uncommon?

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.

The OP itself describes how the numbers are going to be heavily skewed because of how the drugs get metabolized and how often people don't report...

Right, but it seems to be that even when drugs are suspected and tested for within a pretty rapid time period, most often alcohol is the culprit - http://www.octevaw-cocvff.ca/sites/all/files/pdf/reports/Dru...

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.

You can't use the fact that the numbers will be skewed as evidence that drugging must be common.

> It says Rohypnol was detected in less than 1% of cases of sexual assault where drugging was suspected.

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.

Again, at the most that says we don't have good data, however according to wikipedia (and it does seem to be well referenced https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_rape_drug and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_rape#Drugs_used_in_sexual_...) even studies that are designed to catch this stuff don't seem to get much over 1-2% for rohypnol where alcohol comes in closer to half of cases of suspected drug assisted assault.

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)

I'm kind of shocked at how bad that infographic on wikipedia is. I don't disagree on any particular point you've made.

Yeah that is pretty damn awful, if only due to heavy compression and artifacting. I've come to expect more from my free encyclopedia :)

The irony is that there is money to test them, you just need to convince female voters to call their representative and tell them that you'd rather they spend war on terrorism money on getting those rape kits processed instead. Considering that a woman is far more likely to be a victim of rape than terrorism, it's absurd that any rape kit ever sit on the shelf untested.

The difference is that they think terrorism victims don't "deserve it" but rape victims do.

Because alleged "awareness campaigns" which focus on the least common risk factors (and there are many such campaigns) are a major annoyance to me: it's well worth reviewing the other study linked here:

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)

In defense of "awareness campaigns" (I had a roommate who was a health educator) the statistics about whether one is more likely to be raped by a stranger or an acquaintance are very, very widely reported.

> 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.

That's exactly it though, lots of people "experience" being roofied, and then are tested and it turns out they were not. Our "common sense" judgments on situations like this are actually incredibly unreliable.

>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.

>That's exactly it though, lots of people "experience" being roofied, and then are tested and it turns out they were not.

Do you have a link for that?

Toxicological findings in cases of alleged drug-facilitated sexual assault in the United Kingdom over a 3-year period: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16054005

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.

From your source: "Illicit drugs were detected in 344 cases (34%)"

Illicit does not mean unwitting or unwillingly taken.

(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)

> I have experienced it twice in the past 18 months through friends whom I have drank with many times, and had a very obvious reaction to one drink which often had been bought for them or left on a table/bar at some point that evening. Unless someone poured them a drink comprised of 6+ shots worth of liquor, there is no way they would have gone through the change they went through in that one drink.

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.

I've had it happen to me as well. I was very young at the time and only had two drinks the entire night. Luckily I was with safe friends, so it could have been worse.

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.
    > ......^^^^^.

I do not think that word means what you think it means.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=lurid

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2y8Sx4B2Sk

Oh my. I felt my fingers twitch when I typed that sentence. But alas I only have 30 minutes for lunch as did not budget time for lookup.

Still though, lurid may be an appropriate adjective.

What does the type of person who would buy drugs look like?

Like this guy, obviously: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-D4-VcT-tdyU/T6nfkqfzPNI/AAAAAAAABp...

I can tell you what the type of person who does not buy drugs looks like.

*livid

You know what, as someone interested in everything possible, I probably would have bought some, experimented on myself with it and then flushed anything left. I find the whole area absolutely fascinating.

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.

There are so many factors that can lead to a temporary increased sensitivity to alcohol that I am skeptical of anecdotal evidence like this, especially when alcohol is involved.

Rohypnol/GHB are certainly used as date rape drugs, but they have an effect that is distinct from just more liquor.

None of these "date rape drugs" even come close to comparing to alcohol.

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.

That's arguable. I think the line between "these friends know each other and have been flirtatious in the past, it's okay that they got drunk one night and hooked up" and "this random person put a date rape drug in that other person's drink so they could take advantage of their state" is extremely large.

>> "this random person put a date rape drug in that other person's drink so they could take advantage of their state"

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...)

Closer to False Dichotomy.

I think keevie's comment was referring more to a situation in which two strangers meet, one buys many drinks for the other, and then, once very drunk, gets them into bed. If you ask 100 people if that's wrong to do, I'm pretty confident that you're going to get much more conflicting answers than if you ask them about either of your two examples.

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.

The problem is "drunk" is a range (or "very drunk", as you would have it). Clearly it's wrong to have sex with someone who's passed out. And with someone who's almost passed out. And with someone who's almost almost passed out. After that it gets a bit more murky. How drunk is the other party? Is there an existing relationship?

> Getting people drunk to get them to sleep with you isn't really /wrong./

Christ.

I don't think people are more tolerant of alcohol because it's more familiar. I think people are more tolerant of it because the imbiber is usually cognizant of what they're drinking, and does so willingly. Having something done to you without your knowledge or consent IS scarier than having someone persuade you to get carried away with something you're already choosing to do.

That's a fair point. I would think that it's a bit of both, rather than either/or. It's worth pointing out though that just because it's less scary doesn't mean it's less problematic.

> It's the original and most effective date rape drug, and no one even really objects to people using it for that purpose.

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.

>Drunk consent isn't consent

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.

> >Drunk consent isn't consent

> Legally it is.

Not where I live.

Where do you live? Can you cite a law or case that demonstrates you are correct in your belief?

Incase he doesn't reply, I'm fairly sure DanBC lives in the UK. Here is a recent widely publicised case:

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

Just out of curiosity, is drunk driving not driving in your jurisdiction?

The analogy you're looking for here is drunk being-run-over, not drunk driving. Consider this illustrative example:

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!"

That's not what he was asking. The question is if someone can be "too drunk to consent" (assuming they are conscious enough to verbally consent, but too drunk for that consent to be valid in the eyes of the law), then why are people held responsible for drunk driving incidents? If the law finds them incapacitated to the point of not being held responsible for their decisions (in this case to have sex, or sign contracts, etc), why are they held responsible for their decision to drive drunk? It's a valid question and I don't think I've ever seen it answered sufficiently.

Puritanism, pure and simple.

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.

Because the drunk driver's lack of consent isn't the problem with drunk driving: it's the lack of consent from everyone else on the road.

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).

Your answer implicitly casts the drunk person being acted upon, rather than an actor. I see this a lot and I have a feeling this stems from society's sexist views regarding sex that we've all internalized (men are always the actor, women passive). The point is assuming the drunk person (lets assume a women) is giving "enthusiastic consent", and thus is a "drunk actor" in this situation, why is responsibility invalidated in the case of sex, but not in the case of drunk driving?

Someone capable of enthusiastic consent doesn't have their responsibility invalidated. Where did anyone say that? The important cases are where the consent is marginal -- either temporally separated from the act or given from a person who is borderline comatose. Assuming enthusiastic consent is just assuming away the problem.

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.)

>Assuming enthusiastic consent is just assuming away the problem.

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.

http://www.ndaa.org/pdf/pub_prosecuting_alcohol_facilitated_...

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.

IANAL.

They appear to be begging the question. The statutes in question do not say that drinking negates consent, they say that it is rape if someone is too drunk to consent. You have to look at precedent to try to determine what constitutes "too drunk to consent". It is not a simple case of "oh I was drinking so nothing I say counts" as some like to portray. The law has to be careful because claiming "I was drunk" to get out of consent would also have significant repercussions on other cases, not just rape.

Interestingly, while the statute uses the term too intoxicated to consent, it doesn't define it.

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 is no legal definition of "drunk consent". It's up to a jury to decide if a person was too intoxicated to consent. It's also extremely hard to prove, which is part of why rape convictions are rare.

There are definitely laws about surreptitiously intoxicating someone, however, which may quickly lead to conviction if proven.

That is insane. How can two people both rape each other?

> Getting people drunk to get them to sleep with you isn't really /wrong./

Uh what? Getting someone drunk so you can impair their ability to consent or so you can overpower them is most certainly wrong.

I think he was being sarcastic on how buying somebody drinks is considered socially ok (even expected on some countries).

>> Getting people drunk to get them to sleep with you isn't really /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.

I'm giving the commenter the benefit of the doubt. I don't think he means that "there's nothing wrong with getting someone hammered to try and sleep with them", he means that "society seems to have a much smaller problem with getting someone hammered to try and sleep with them despite it being the same basic idea as GHB."

Exactly. A much, much smaller problem.

Dunno. To me there's a vast differnce between getting pissed and falling into bed with someone as a mutual "WAHEY! let's go for it!" thing and "if I keep buying her drinks maybe she'll get drunk enough to take her top off". The latter seems little better than spiking them.

--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.

Pretty sure keevie was being sarcastic.

My meter is off this week, and the whole troll/poe thing is still settling down in my brain.

If it was a comment on societal attitudes then cool, am on board.

> 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.

Is there an objective test, that can be administered by a third party, to differentiate between these two cases? If not, then what?

> 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.

Is he saying that he uses it that way himself? No.

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.

Not only is it downright fucked up, it's rape. Full stop.

OK so I am glad I read this. I wasn't sure how to take your first comment, as is a classic on the net - I read into it emotionally as praise for the actions you described. I'm glad to read that I had the wrong end of the stick.

You are very wrong that no one objects to people using alcohol as a date rape drug, and I don't hesitate to condemn anyone who pressures someone else into drinking in order to control them.

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 mean no one really objects to people drinking enough to make bad decisions with one another, then hating themselves for it so much that they... proceed to go out again and get drunk again and make bad decisions with one another again, and do it over and over and over again?

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...

Could you edit your post to clarify what you mean? The comments show this as an example of when not to convey your point using sarcasm, as everybody stopped reading once they read one statement.

I'll assume you're being sarcastic with the condoning of sexual assault, however one difference is that a person who drinks a lot after being offered said drinks is complicit in their own intoxication, whereas with a date rape drug they are unaware

I can't edit my post it seems, but yes, I am most definitely being sarcastic here.

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.

On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog.

Or something. I'm glad you're not a terrible person.

Not so common in North America anymore, but very common in S. America and Europe. Brazil expect every drink you have to be spiked with scopolamine especially if you're a rich looking tourist and a girl who makes $50/week wants to clear out your hotel. I would expect the same in the Czech Republic too, but since bartenders are in cahoots with the thieves there you'd need to bring your own straws.

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.

The bigger problem with cups would be dark-colored drinks. The concept looks great if we assume a martini. But fairly useless with a cola- or red-juice-based mixer.

Hmm indeed. Not to mention how dark clubs are anyways, or the one's who serve bottles.

Wouldn't the straws come in handy in that situation?

They'd be more visually practical, but it would be far easier to swap a reactive straw with a non-reactive straw.

It's a tricky problem, even before you consider false-positives and the false sense of security in general.

Create a spiral straw from two trips, like a candy cane. One strip turns one color in the presence of Alcohol and turns darker the more it detects - and the other strip turns a different color in the presence of anything else that you want to detect for.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com