By Joshua Lyford

“Drug-facilitated sexual assault, or date rape, is a despicable and horrific crime,” said Mike Abramson, the creator of DrinkSavvy. “But like a lot of people, I never really gave it a second thought.”

That is, until Abramson himself experienced the horror firsthand.

“I went to the bar to order my first drink of the night,” Abramson recalled. “But about halfway through that first drink, it started to feel more like my 15th. The only thing I remember after that is waking up with a headache, feeling confused and immediately thinking to myself, ‘What happened to me that I don’t remember?’”

For months after the events of that fateful evening, Abramson steered clear of ordering drinks. Eventually, he began purchasing drug-testing strips that he would use every several minutes on anything he ordered. “After a while, I was tired of being paranoid and insecure about not knowing if my drink was safe to drink. I knew there had to be a better way, and I wanted to make sure this didn’t happen to anyone else. That’s what gave birth to DrinkSavvy.”

There are estimated to be more than a million victims of similar crimes every year. DrinkSavvy aims to change all that with a product that makes it impossible to slip a date-rape drug into your drink undetected. DrinkSavvy would offer plastic cups, straws, stirrers, glassware and other drinkware that, while otherwise identical to standard items, change color the instant a drug is slipped into a drink. This means that you do not have to constantly look over your shoulder or utilize test strips. The cup (or straw, or stirrer) does the work for you.
Abramson is a man with a knack for identifying problems and developing solutions. He grew up in Falmouth, Maine, and received a degree in electrical and computer engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, later graduating from the University of New Hampshire School of Law. He spends his days as a patent attorney and often up to 20 or 30 hours a week developing DrinkSavvy.

“I’ve almost forgotten what it’s like to have free time.” Abramson said.

Abramson and DrinkSavvy have been amazingly (and unsurprisingly) well received. The company reached its campaign-funding goal of $50,000 on Indiegogo.com and then some. The company also has received incredible support and press from ABC News, Fox News, The Morning Show, Women’s Health, Cosmopolitan and many more. The only thing left to do is to find the right company to develop the patent-pending technology. Abramson estimated that the product should be ready to ship to crowd-funding supporters by September, 2013, and available for mass production by January, 2014.

“Once we are up and running, we are very optimistic that bars, clubs, restaurants and colleges/universities will be enthusiastic about adopting our products,” Abramson said, “Especially since we anticipate pricing to be comparable to current drinkware prices. However, we expect public support from parents, patrons, rape crisis centers, insurance companies and lawmakers to help make DrinkSavvy the new safety standard. Together, we can make drug-facilitated sexual assault a crime of the past.”

Keep up with DrinkSavvy online at DrinkSavvyInc.com, on Facebook.com/SavvyTechnology and on Twitter @DrinkSavvyInc.