Five Nantes students create a straw capable of detecting GHB

Spotlight on a very nice initiative to the credit of five students from Nantes who have developed an anti-GHB straw.

In recent months, a very worrying phenomenon has been observed in several cities in France, where cases of transient amnesia have been reported in some women, sexually assaulted after being drugged without their knowledge in drinking establishments.

In the wake of these terrible news items, the hashtag #BalanceTonBar spread like wildfire on social networks, where many victims testified to this painful experience.

Testimonies as hard as necessary which have (re) highlighted the problem of the date rape drug : GHB ( gammahydroxybutyric).

Colorless and odorless, the latter has the particularity of having sedative, anxiolytic and euphoric properties which make it particularly formidable when used by sexual predators, who pour it into the glass of their prey before taking action. .

Eager to protect women and put rapists out of harm’s way, five students from Nantes have developed a straw capable of detecting GHB.

“ We had to build a business plan around an innovation? And we thought that marketing an anti-drug straw would be a good idea because we all know, directly or indirectly, someone who has been a victim of it, ” says one of them. , questioned by our colleagues from BFM TV.

“ Frankly around us, we quite often hear stories of girls who have been drugged without their knowledge in the evening. It is the accumulation of testimonies that gave us the idea of ​​this project. We know a girl to whom it happened recently in Toulouse, another in Noirmoutiers… As young women, we also go to parties. And it’s true that when we go out, the fear that it will happen to us is always in the back of our minds , ”she further specifies.

The concept is very simple, it would consist of attaching a light yellow ring to a stainless steel straw, which would change color on contact with GHB, thus becoming dark green.

Although the invention is only at the project stage for the moment, the five students have already contacted a chemist so that it becomes a reality.

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