After falling victim to a spiked drink and seeing three close friends experience the same distressing and disgusting act, Mike Abramson, the creator of DrinkSavvy was determined to find a way to fight back and protect other potential victims from being drugged whilst socialising.
The IndieGoGo-funded startup raised it’s initial $50,000 goal thanks to 2,582 funders, to create colour changing drinks products that can alert would be victims of drink contamination. Engineering Grad Abramson teamed up with Chemistry Professor John MacDonald at Worcester Polytechnic in Massachusetts, USA, to create and develop a line of plastic cups, glasses, stirrers and straws that turn red when the presence of the most common “date rape” drugs is detected – drugs like Ketamine, GHB and Rohypnol “Ruffies”.
Speaking in his promo video, Abramson said: “DrinkSavvy’s ultimate goal is to use the success of this campaign to convince bars, clubs, and colleges to make DrinkSavvy the new safety standard & eventually make drug-facilitated sexual assault a crime of the past.”
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It’s a big claim, but with millions of estimated incidents of drink spiking and spiking-related assaults, technology like this could be a real revolution if it can reach the mass market and becomes adopted by bars, colleges, universities and so on – even if they only adopt the straws and stirrers.
For more info, check out: drinksavvyinc.com
