Thinking out loud about nail varnish...

It's another tool in preventing/deterring would be date rape drug rapists

But it won't prevent rape will it? It just means the rapist chooses another woman that day. It merely moves him on.

Agree totally with OP.

Well not really, TheSameBoat. If we're all fighting this together instead of making excuses then yes, we can go some way to majorly reducing incidences.

Better to add more tools to the box to fight something that will never be completely eradicated than sitting back and criticising any deterrent that someone invents!

It's a logistical nightmare, I agree.

Perhaps clubs/bars could have their staff members wearing the nail polish and if something looks "off" they can test the drink of the person acting obliterated/odd.

I think my reaction to it is "Oh my god, WTF! Is this seriously what we've come to?!"

What happened to the good old days when you could go out, have a drink with your mates and let your hair down, confident in the goodness of human nature that you were gonna make it home without being raped?

But yes, OP you're right. Protecting yourself from the problem doesn't solve the problem, it just shifts it onto someone else.

I more meant that, for many women, they would feel so wasted that they wouldn't be able to think straight to take logical actions like reporting and testing. How lucky for your friend that she had trusted friends around. x

My friend was! She just suddenly started acting like she was wasted but was also confused as she was only on her second drink so couldn't understand why she felt so odd.

I do get what you're saying as this might not be the case for everyone but certainly in my direct experience the effects were enough for her to know something was wrong.

I don't think that, when you have been drugged, you are likely to be 'with it' enough to start drink checking and alerting people, are you?

When you've been drugged with a date rape drug, from what I've seen and heard from others experiences, you start to feel "wrong" quite quickly. It is then that you could check the drink to confirm?

I don't know how exactly people will use it but I still think it's a good idea.

It's another tool in preventing/deterring would be date rape drug rapists.

But the point of it is not to protect individual women. The point is to scare potential drink spikers by making them aware there is a chance they could be caught. At the moment the chance is pretty much zero as the drugs become indetectible in the blood stream so quickly.

Yeah Ready - but even if you agree with the principle, it isn't going to be enough to check a drink is it? you are going to have to check every single time you take a sip.

Ready, that's what I was trying to say: the staff can be alerted. I hadn't thought as far as CCTV though.

I do agree that the onus shouldn't be on women, but on everyone. But should I advise my student daughter not to carry a rape alarm for that reason? Or not do a self-defence course?

Having worked in nightclubs I'm going to go against the vein here and say I think it's a great idea.

If someone sees their drink has been spiked by the change in colour they can alert the door staff/bar staff/club manager and cctv can be checked immediately and hopefully, the culprit caught.

You'd be surprised how much ground those cameras in clubs actually cover.

A decent establishment will take this very seriously.

I don't know. I just don't think you would need to be particularly suspicious to occasionally stir your drink with your finger.

I think they've done it to coasters as well.

I think it would put men off spiking drinks if they could be caught by random spills, stirring drinks etc.

But a drink doesn't have to be out of your sight for someone to drug it manly. All you have to do is look away for 30 seconds and it's done. If you feel the person next to you is trustworthy testing your drink won't be on your mind. You might even ask the person who ends up drugging you to look after your drink while you go to toilet.

I don't think the reality in a club is that you are looking for a particular person, is it? The only people I know who have had drinks spiked had no idea who had done it. It could have been anyone at all.

The purpose I assume is to test the drink if it has been out of your sight at all.

The thing that gets me most about idiotic inventions like this is that they have no connection to reality at all. The idea of drug-detecting nail varnish paints the picture of the vigilant woman on the lookout for the obvious rapists who immediately (with their rapey-rapist eyes or cheeks or forearms or some such) alert her that something is wrong. I mean, rapists aren't normal men, are they, they're monsters that you can spot from 30 miles away. So, the woman spots the hulking, drooling, monster and she immediately dips her finger and, bingo, drugs are spotted and monster retreats to his cave. Everyone is happy, apart from the monsters of course.

It's all so bogey-man, so Hansel and Gretel.

In fact, what happens is that a perfectly normal-looking man, charming and personable, starts a conversation with a woman who thinks "ooh nice guy," and they stand around chatting for a while, as you do. She might even know the guy, have dated him, or have been friends with him for years. He might be the partner of a friend. Whatever he is, he comes across as "safe" and the woman, like a normal person, relaxes, sips her drink, enjoys herself. She has no reason to feel any danger. It's only when she wakes up later that she realises that, in fact, rapists aren't drooling half-humans who you can spot from space, they are just "normal" men who hide in plain sight and rely on the fact that the whole world tells women that rape is their responsibility, their problem. If a woman is stupid enough not to protect herself, what does she expect?

I can see what would be more likely to happen:

1. Man puts drug in drink.
2. Woman puts finger in drink and finds it drugged.
3. Woman points it out.
4. Bystanders call woman crazy and attention seeking and claim she drugged her own drink in order to make false accusation.

Whenever I hear about some new 'anti-rape' device I think 'Does that mean any woman who doesn't buy/can't afford said anti-rape device will be blamed for not protecting herself?'

They have been very careful in the wording of this, in interviews I have read. They didn't say the purpose of it was not to protect individual women but to make people who drug women afraid of getting spotted.

Which I can see. If at any moment any woman could show her drink had been drugged, it would surely make men using those drugs more wary?