Glasses that tell you if there's date rape drugs in your drink.

By NATALIA HAWK

This is the story of how I once accidentally drugged my best friend.

It’s a story that I shouldn’t be telling – because it never should have happened. But it did.

Why? Because rape drugs are colourless, odourless, tasteless, and therefore very bloody hard to pick out of a drink. I will share the story with you shortly, but before I do, can we please take a moment to give science a high-five.

You see, science has done humanity yet another favour and invented drinkware that changes colour when rape drugs are present.

This from theweek.com:

A start-up company, DrinkSavvy, is creating drinkware that changes color when date-rape drugs are present, going from clear to red. Mike Abramson, DrinkSavvy’s founder, was inspired to create the cups after he himself was drugged. “I was thinking that I needed to develop something that was discreet, effortless, and continuous,” he says. The startup also wants to create straws and other kinds of drinking apparatuses that can help with detection.

To me, that sounds like a WAY better idea than the whole “just keep a close eye on your drink and never put it down” thing. Because that method is not exactly guaranteed.

And I know that from experience, because – like I said – I accidentally drugged my best friend. This is how it happened…

I was at a very popular pub in Sydney, at my best friend Phil’s birthday party. It was relatively early in the evening, and I was only on my second drink – a vodka raspberry – when some random guy knocked it out of my hand and onto the floor.

Alarm bells went off in my head immediately, mainly because of the way he knocked it out of my hand. Like he’d done it on purpose. Just to be annoying. But I was young(er) and silly and still felt too invincible to worry about things like, you know, risk.

“I’m so sorry,” the guy said. “Let me get you another drink.”

I shrugged, indifferent about the whole thing, and went back to chatting to my friend.

It started to get really weird when the guy returned with a tall glass of orange juice for me. “That’s not the drink I had,” I said, confused.

“Does it matter?” he said, smiling. He was young. He looked like a nice person.

“I don’t like orange juice,” I said.

“Oh, just drink it,” he said.

My brain still didn’t twig. I KNOW. Looking back, I want to smack myself over the head. But at the time, I just wandered over to the table where birthday boy Phil was sitting, and put the drink down in front of him.

“Here you go, Philly,” I said. “Free drink!”

He downed it. His second drink of the evening. And very soon after that drink, everything went foggy for him. He was acting differently, of course, but we thought he’d just gotten drunker. He hadn’t. He’d been drugged.

He got dragged home by his brother shortly before midnight. He woke up the next morning and couldn’t remember anything after that tall glass of orange juice.

He called me, and we put the puzzle pieces of the evening together. “Oh shit,” I said. “I accidentally roofied you! On your birthday!”

And at the time? We laughed. Because it was a ridiculous situation that didn’t end badly for anyone. But it so, so easily could have. I don’t know what intentions that nice-looking young man had, but it makes me nauseous to think about it too much now.

Ever since that night, I’ve heard so many stories about date-rape drugs. SO many stories. And it’s not really surprising – especially considering added warnings about bartenders being in on the whole thing too.

So. I’m all for prevention, and I’m all for this fancy-schmancy new cup invention.

Here‘s how to donate to the company, if you’re interested.