Around 10 per cent of women and sexual minorities report having their drink spiked at some point.
Now researchers at UBC have developed a tool that could help catch spiked drinks and stop sexual assaults before they happen.
Spikeless is an ordinary-looking stir stick that changes colour when drugs like GHB or ketamine are added to a drink. It takes about 30 seconds to change colour, offering a quick way to get results.
“People have tried cups, coasters, straws, even nail polish to detect these drugs. Our device is more discreet than existing alternatives and doesn’t contaminate the drink,” says co-inventor Samin Yousefi, a UBC master’s student, in a press release.
The stir sticks use a special coating on the tip that changes colour when exposed to harmful concentrations of drugs in a drink.
"The single-use tool is affordable and intended for large-scale use in public venues such as bars, pubs, restaurants and festivals," reads the release.
The hope is that the Spikeless stir stick will shift the onus from people enjoying a drink to the venues serving the drinks, as the intention is for drinks to be served with the stir stick in place.
“If people feel safer because a venue offers Spikeless, that’s a competitive advantage,” notes Dr. Johan Foster, another researcher working on the stir stick.
Foster first came up with the concept more than a decade ago and spent the last three years working on the idea.
The stir sticks are now undergoing real-world testing. A startup is launching soon to scale up production.
