Quararibea turbinata

There are many initiatives occurring to help victims survive rape, and preventing date rape in the first place. A little anecdote, one night at a party, suspecting her drink has been drugged, a woman surreptitiously dips a painted fingernail into the drink. It changes color, proving her hunch was correct. The story may be hypothetical, but the nail polish is not. This spring, a group of four students at North Carolina State University announced they had developed such a product—one that changes color when it encounters drugs like Rohypnol (also known as roofies), Xanax, and GHB, which are commonly used to facilitate rape. They named the company Undercover Colors, and claim to be The First Fashion Company Empowering Women to Prevent Sexual Assault. “We started working on Undercover Colors because we wanted to use our engineering education to address a problem that has had a very significant impact on each one of our lives” (Arnold 1). Color-changing nail polish isn’t the only product designed to detect drugs that are slipped into a person’s drink. An Israeli team working at Tel Aviv University has proposed a color-changing swizzle stick that you could use to stir your drink and would indicate if GHB, Rohypnol, or ketamine were present. While the swizzle stick and nail polish both show promise, the only product that is currently available is a coaster by a Tallahassee, Florida, company called Drink Safe Technologies. The coaster, says company president and owner Lance Norris,…