“It was really important to us to get this out now, because between homecoming and Halloween, October has the highest rate of date rape,” said Cook. The release of Undercover Colors has been timed to coincide with the academic calendar, because according to the Office on Women’s Health, studies show that students are at the highest risk of sexual assault in the first few months of their first and second semesters in college. The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) reports that every 98 seconds, an American is sexually assaulted.īut aside from arming oneself with a beverage test, to help combat drug-facilitated sexual assault, RAINN suggests knowing what you’re drinking and avoiding large-batch drinks like punches, refusing drinks from unknown people and not leaving a drink unattended. And, nearly one in ten women has been raped by an intimate partner in her lifetime, which includes alcohol or drug-facilitated completed penetration, meaning she was under the influence of a substance.
The kits are a much-needed addition to women’s lives: According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, in the United States, one in five women and one in 71 men will be raped at some point in their lives. “We want to be able to detect as many drugs in as many beverages as possible,” he said. Nick Letourneau, the director of research and development for the company, told Moneyish the test kit works in more than 100 types of liquid (though it doesn’t yet test for other substances like GHB or ketamine, which are also commonly used as date rape drugs) like wine, beer and mixed cocktails. One line means your drink is contaminated and two lines mean you’re in the clear.ĭr.
To use the test, the user places a few drops of liquid such as beer, wine or a cocktail onto the discreet, quarter-sized testing medallion and in thirty seconds to three minutes, result lines appear. “The original idea was a female-led product based around nails and nail polish that changed color if a drink contained drugs, but we decided to make the actual product in a gender neutral format,” she added. Undercover Colors was founded by four students from the University of North Carolina, and Barbara Cook, the CEO of Undercover Colors, tells Moneyish that the date rape issue is personal: “Initially, the idea was to find out very quickly if a drink had been spiked - and it was born out of personal experience,” she said.
0 kommentar(er)
