Staying Safe

Products to Prevent or Detect Spiked Drinks

There are many tips to prevent drink spiking, including never leaving your drink unattended and never accepting drinks from strangers. However, preventing drink spiking is not something that should be the sole responsibility of potential victims. That being said, these potential victims still often find themselves in a position where they must constantly be wary of a potentially spiked drink. Because of this reality, there have been a number of products developed to help these individuals with prevention or detection of spiked drinks.

NightCap™

The NightCap is a protective drink cover that also doubles as a hair scrunchie. The scrunchie, which can be worn on the wrist or in hair, has a hidden pocket that contains a drink cover. The cover can be placed over a drink to deter drink spiking. This product was created by two siblings from West Palm Beach, Florida, Shirah and Michael Benarde.

DISCLAIMER: Although this product can deter drink spiking, it cannot guarantee your safety.

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SipChip™

Undercover Colours, a start-up created by four North Carolina State University students, developed a mini date rape drug test that could be attached to keys and smartphones. These tests are designed similar to pregnancy tests and are able to detect Xanax, Valium, and Rohypnol. To test your drink, simply drop the liquid onto the test. After about a minute, a single or double pink line will appear. The single pink line indicates the drink has been spiked, whereas two pink lines indicate the drink is negative for the drugs mentioned above.

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Drink Safe Coasters

Date rape drug test coasters developed by Drink Safe Technologies and given out at the University of New Mexico are able to test for the common date rape drugs, GHB and Ketamine. The coasters have a two-test “drug-detector” that will show a blue dot if it comes into contact with either of these drugs. Detection of Ketamine will give a pinkish tint, whereas detection of GHB will give a greenish tint.

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More information about these products can be found below:

Contributed By: Meggie Vo

References

Header image: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/what-we-know-drink-spiking-trend-b1952198.html

Image 1: https://nightcapit.com/

Image 2: https://www.amazon.ca/SipChip-Drink-Spiking-Test-Detection/dp/B07LFMKCFT

Image 3: https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/18/us/date-rape-drug-coasters-new-mexico-trnd/index.html