Coasters
detect date rape drugs
By Kari Schneider
On-line Forty-Niner
A
young woman walks into a bar. She orders
a Long Island Iced Tea and starts talking
to the man sitting next to her. The bartender
delivers her drink on a brightly colored
coaster that can be used to detect date
rape drugs.
Before the woman even takes a sip, she tests
her drink with a few drops on the coaster.
Nothing happens. She takes a drink. Well
now it is because of a man whose close friend
fell victim to a sexual predator.
In 2000, Francisco Guerra and New York dentist
Brian Glover teamed up to design a product
that could detect whether drugs have been
put in someone’s drink. They named their
company Drink Safe Technologies. The product?
A coaster.
“I would use [the coaster],” Kay Chomchavalit,
a liberal studies major said. “But I would
still watch my drink.”
A federal task force recently estimated
that college drinking leads to an estimated
70,000 sexual assaults or rapes annually,
according to a recent Associated Press article.
“Sixty percent of men who put drugs into
women’s drinks are bartenders,” Guerra said.
“There is no substitute for common sense,
but some things are beyond your control.”
According to the Drink Safe Technologies
Web site, the coaster is easy to use. A
stick, straw or finger is all it takes to
test if a drink has been contaminated. Place
a drop of the drink in the test circles,
and if the circle changes color to either
red, blue or green then the drink is contaminated.
Guerra likens the coasters to condoms; the
coasters are not 100 percent effective,
but they are a good prevention tool.
“Not everything is 100 percent and you have
to know the difference,” said Carrie Rosplock,
a liberal studies and history double major.
“There are five criteria that a date rape
drug must meet: relatively tasteless, odorless,
colorless, must dissolve in alcohol and
water and it must render its victim to a
semicose state,” Guerra said.
The Young Women’s Christian Association,
which is the oldest organization geared
towards women, supports the Drink Safe coaster.
The association’s goal, stated on its Web
site, is to promote the economic empowerment,
physical, and emotional well-being of women
and girls and work to eliminate racism.
“[Drink Safe Technologies] is calling attention
to a problem, [the coasters] aren’t perfect.
We must continue the publicity,” said Helene
Pizzini, director of the San Pedro YWCA.
“Women need to be alert [when they are socially
drinking].”
“I have had 100 people say this saved them
from getting raped,” Guerra said. “Before
me, there was no way to detect it. It is
nice to be able to do something about it.”
The coasters are modestly set at a price
of around 40 cents a piece, according to
the Web site. The company ships orders the
same day because Guerra wants make sure
they are out there and available. The Drink
Safe Technologies ships its products worldwide
from Florida and a new site in New York.
“I think I will stick to the old rule, don’t
leave your drink unattended,” said Maureen
Hernandez, a nursing major.
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