Soon, a fresh manicure could have the potential to save your life.
Mixing chemistry with cosmetics, four male undergraduates at North Carolina State University have created Undercover Colors, a nail polish that changes color when exposed to date rape drugs.
Assuming that it actually works of course.
But it’s clever in two ways.
The first is that it solves that problem of how does a woman make sure she’s not being fed rohypnol (doesn’t entirely solve the basic problem of course, the only time I’ve ever seen someone being fed such was in Russia, a couple of tarts were going to roll the guy when the barkeep stepped in and stopped them taking him away) without carrying a chemistry lab around with her.
The second is in a business sense. There’s few who actually do get so drugged: but there’s many more who would buy or use the product in order to avoid it. The market is vastly larger than the problem.
In theory, this is great. It will show women that the use of date rape drugs hardly ever happens.
In practise, it’s a disaster waiting to happen, for two reasons. (i) The product will inevitably produce false positives, as most such products do, leading to innocent men being accused. (ii) When the product fails to produce the expected number of true positives, the sensitivity will be increased, leading to an increased number of false positives.
I love how it tells us they are male undergraduates so we know to take it seriously!
A test for one drug might be viable–but a test for several?–in nail polish?. Tredwell is right –it is a barrage of false accusations waiting to happen and will encourage the return of more feminist propaganda tripe. There were very few proven rohypnol incidents and lots of nonsense including antics like banning GHB which has about the knock-out potential of old fashioned Benelyn cough mixture( and you can’t get that any more–it was mildly soporific and helpful in getting to sleep ). GHB was banned because it was a pro-sexual nutrient which apparently, while not an aphrodisiac, caused people having sex to enjoy it more. It was targeted by Jesus-Jumpers in the US FDA who hated the idea that it was available to buy over the counter and worked up the hysteria using rape drug claims and the self-inflicted death of idiot actor River Phoenix. He had taken GHB on the night of his demise–along with just about every other drug known to man. Where US bureaucratic idiots blazed a trail, UK cretins soon followed.
Should me start wearing nail polish.