Memory-melting roofies, aka date rape drugs–which lurk odorless, colorless, and tasteless in drinks–may have met their match. DrinkSavvy, a new line of glassware, plastic cups, straws, and stirrers, detects their presence. When a drink is spiked, stop sign-red stripes show up on the cup’s sides; the clear straw or stirrer changes color, too.

That such a product is necessary is a sign of grim times, times in which the sinister drugs are too easily acquired and too unknowingly administered. The versions that appear in bars are often just powdered megadoses of the prescription benzodiazepine Rohypnol–an insomniac’s little helper, similar to Valium and Xanax.

There are more than a million victims of predator drugs every year–and in 2010, DrinkSavvy founder Mike Abramson was one of them.





“I ordered my first drink of the night at a birthday party at a Boston club,” Abramson tells Co.Design. “But halfway through that first drink, it started to feel more like my 15th. One of the few things I remember after that is waking up with a massive headache and substantial nausea, feeling confused, and wondering, ‘What happened to me that I don’t remember?'” With no injuries, he assumed he’d been the target of a robbery before whoever dosed him got cold feet, or that the drink had been meant for someone else.

Abramson made it his mission to avoid another hellish blackout. “I bought drug-testing strips to pour my drink on periodically, but that was really annoying, and incredibly socially awkward.” So he took his idea of merging the software with the hardware to Dr. John MacDonald, a chemistry professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, who integrated a magic color-changing, roofie-busting material into plastic and glassware.

Next month, thanks to the $52,089 Abramson raised on IndieGoGo, the first batch of straws and 16-oz. plastic cups ships out. By 2014, the company expects products to be widely commercially available.

“Even preventing one person from being the victim of a drug-facilitated sexual assault would make DrinkSavvy wildly successful,” says Abramson. He hopes the products will someday become the new norm in bars, clubs, and on college campuses. Bottles and cans with similar detection functions are in the works.