I have seen ads on Facebook for nail polish that will change colors if a woman has ingested date-rape drugs.
I have a hard time believing this would be possible, since if the nails were that permeable, the solvents in regular nail polish would damage the nail bed, probably painfully.
So, could a drug in the blood stream be chemically detected through a fingernail?
The idea is that the polish changes color if you dip your finger into your drink and the drink is contaminated, not if you have already ingested the drug. (It’s obviously not very useful to be able to detect date-rape drugs after the fact!)
OK then. I should have read the about thingy.
The polish had better be nontoxic, because the woman is going to drink the drink if it’s tested negative. (She put her finger in the drink.)
How does it work, chemically? I have a hard time believing their are chemical, color changing agents that are that specific for Flunitrazepam and not lots of other stuff. Although I guess all you have to make sure is that it doesn’t react with anything that’s supposed to be in drinks, but I bet there are lots of organic compounds in small amounts in many different types of drinks.
The polish is on her *fingernail *the same as any other nail polish. Of course it is nontoxic. Or do you think that regular nail polish manages to never ever touch anyone’s lips or food or anything that ends up in someone’s mouth?
This isn’t “the same as any other nail polish”. That’s the whole point of it. It has an additive that changes color in the presence of the drug.
(Actually, it sounds like they are still researching it, so it may be more of an idea than an existing additive.)
This is probably a plan to cover the existence of Orkans on Earth.
Flunitrazepam is a benzodiazepine, a class of drugs with many members, including Valium, Xanax, Ativan, and many others. (They all appear to have generic names ending in -pam or -lam.) Perhaps the magic ingredient is sensitive to any such drug? One wouldn’t expect to find any benzo mixed in a drink. Indeed, taking any benzo along with alcohol is strongly discouraged.
I just flashed on this scene:
A guy buys a girl a drink. She fishes in her purse for a little case. She opens it up and takes out an empty vial with a cap and an eyedropper. She uses the eyedropper to put several drops of the drink into the vial. Then she takes another little bottle out of the case with an eyedropper cap and puts a drop of that stuff into the vial. Then she caps the vial, shakes it, holds it up to the light, and compares the color to a chart on the inner lid of the case. If the liquid turns pink, she thanks the fellow for the drink and takes a sip. If it turns blue or purple, she puts her stuff back into her purse and tells the guy she needs to go to the ladies’ room.
It seems to me that if a woman is with a guy in a bar, and she begins to think “I wonder if this guy is going to drug my drink. Maybe I should test it with my special nail polish before I drink it,” she should just leave anyway. There’s no need for an actual nail-polish test. If a guy is creepy enough that you think he even just might possibly be drugging your drink, he really isn’t someone you want to be hanging out with.
I would think it’s more for the *other *people that you don’t see rather than someone you are talking with. Girl at a party puts her drink down to use the bathroom, comes back and wants to make sure no one put something in it. That kind of thing.
The concern isn’t just being drugged by a guy you’re actually with or accepting drinks from, but also having stuff slipped into a drink you bought yourself.
But surely if she is not already with the guy, she is not going to end up passed out in his room, she is just going to pass out in the bar itself, with lots of people around to witness if any of them try to take advantage, or maybe she will pass out on her way home, which could be bad for her, but not much help to the would-be rapist drugging her drink.
I mean, these drugs don’t actually make women any easier to pick-up, do they? I thought they just knocked them out so that they are easier to fuck once you get them back to your place. 
The can make a person disorientated, groggy and easily-led, or so the television has told me.
It doesn’t. It’s vapourware. This happens a lot on the web - there are sites/blogs where up and coming designers post dreamy, sometimes quite unrealisable concepts, then the reblogging community latches on to them as if they are already on the market.
So sort of like the alcoholic drinks that people put them in.
…and if people are getting their drinks spiked/made stronger without their knowledge, you’d have a point.
The developers are taking contributions. :dubious:
As is typical of vaporware.