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Next time you go to a party in a bar, do not hesitate if someone offers you a drink. Just dip this little stick clandestinely in the glass and get to know if the drink is spiked or not. Called pd.id (personal drink ID), just stick the pocket-sized gizmo into your drink and it will scan for colour, conductivity and temperature. It then takes that information and compares it to a database of drinks it knows by connecting to an app on your phone. If it finds that the drink is red wine and nothing more, a green light flashes. 'But if it spots a date-rape drug, the red light will flash,' its developer David Wilson was quoted as saying in the Huffington Post. 'pd.id is a warning system. Even if it cannot find exactly what has been mixed in the drink, the red light will still flash,' Wilson added.
What is the date-rape drug?
Ketamine is a very powerful sedative, that is virtually undetectable until you notice the symptoms. Here are some facts you ought to know:
1. Ketamine is an anaesthetic agent used to anaesthetise children and is used very rarely in extremely specific conditions in adults. It causes dissociation from the surroundings and good pain relief without having any depressive effect on respiration and blood pressure as seen with most of the other anaesthetic agents.
2. It is available in powder as well as liquid form and is colourless as well as tasteless. Because of these properties it is used for drugging people in parties and hence is notoriously known as date rape drug.
3. There is no way a person can know once he or she is drugged by ketamine. If the dose is sufficient the person will go off to sleep and will wake up hours or days later once the effect of the drug wears off. (Read: General anaesthesia and surgery all your queries answered)
4. The drug causes hallucinations in adults and the person can suffer from bad dreams for years! The drug also causes nystagmus (a condition where the eyes keep shifting from one side to the other) this trait is a characteristic of this drug. It also increases the blood pressure.
5. Once drugged, it does not feel like an alcoholic high. It is much like being anaesthetised, where you will not feel any sensation (neither pain nor any discomfort). A person who is drugged is also likely to be unable to move on his/her own. Ketamine is known as a dissociative anaesthetic, where you will likely feel disassociated from your surroundings and yourself. Read more about the date-rape drug...
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