Coasters help curtail date rape incidents

By Elizabeth Anderson
Daily Staff Reporter  On  January 28th, 2003

A new consumer product has made date-rape drugs less threatening to American women but has gone largely unnoticed by the University and Ann Arbor communities. The Drink Safe Coaster, created by Drink Safe Technologies, Inc., can detect if GHB, Ketamine or other common date rape drugs have contaminated beverages.
The coaster indicates if one of six date-rape drugs is present in any beverage by changing color to bright blue when a drop of the beverage is dotted onto it.
Organizations such as the YWCA and rape crisis centers around the country have been handing out the coasters since October.
"They have real value," said Sandy Davis, Rape Crisis Center director for the Santa Clara, Calif. YWCA. "We just stumbled across a website of the manufacturer. I think they'll be very available and I think the really savvy bars are going to have them."
Each coaster has two testing areas and a suggested individual retail price of 75 to 95 cents, said Drink Safe Distributors Director John Allison.
"I've had many phone calls from universities on how to get the product," Allison said. "But the product is so new, that's why no one's heard of it."
Neither Kent Baumkel, Ann Arbor Police Department personal safety coordinator, nor Therese Doud, Advocacy Services coordinator for the Sexual Assault Crisis Center of Washtenaw County, had heard of the Drink Safe Coaster. But both expressed positive reactions to the coasters and a desire to see them implemented in University settings.
When asked about marketing strategies, Drink Safe Technologies Vice President Mike Giles said many colleges and universities have placed orders for the coasters.
"Our main thrust has been trying to get it into your local drugstores and convenience stores," Giles said. "The product hasn't been out that long, but it threw a slew of colleges and universities towards us - one of the bigger clienteles that came on board initially."
Initially, Drink Safe Technologies pitched the Drink Safe Coasters to alcohol companies such as Bacardi and Anheuser-Busch, said Drink Safe Technologies Scientific Coordinator Brian Glover. "Our original thought on this was to get one of the alcohol companies to sponsor it," Glover said. "We met with a few (companies) and they liked the idea ... but they couldn't have their product associated with a crime because it would be too much bad publicity."
Giles expressed irritation with this decision.
"Why shouldn't they step up to the plate? Let them be the ones to say, hey, we can make things safer for our bars and our environment," Giles said.
When asked to comment on Anheuser-Busch's position on the coasters, spokesman Jim Schwartz said he'd never heard of the product.
Some students said the University should distribute the coasters.
"I think that anything we can do to make our women and our men more aware of the potential for (date rape) to happen and to better prevent it is a very good thing," Panhellenic Association President Liz Franke said.

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