Sorry, I was being sarcastic. The goal of these things is to prevent date rape by someone unsuspectingly taking particular drugs. There's not much you are going to be able to invent if your goal is to stop date rape by preventing people from knowingly drinking alcohol.

But you just repeated the same thing. Again, I am not suggesting "stop date rape by preventing people from knowingly drinking alcohol" should be a goal. I am saying these devices are harmful. They have the opposite effect from what is intended. They create a false sense of security in regards to the problem, convincing people that as long as their drink hasn't been spiked they are fine. But 99% of date rapes involving drugs aren't from drink spiking, they are just from drinking.

Perhaps both of you would understand each others position better, by meditating on the phrase "security theater".

A straw that detects a handful of numerous dangerous substances is about as useful at its claim of producing "safety" as TSA agents molesting grandmas and teen girls at airports. I'm rather proud of this analogy.

I understand the position (and enjoy your analogy), I just simply disagree with it. I find it hard to believe that anyone who is drinking an alcoholic beverage is going to be tricked into thinking the effects of said alcohol are any different just because a straw or cup says "SAFE."

Go ask some college aged women about it and see what you find. Ignorance of the effects of alcohol is incredibly widespread. Thousands of women a year swear they had their drink spiked but actually just got black-out drunk. Convincing women that all they need to worry about is the 1% case, and that the 99% case doesn't exist is harmful.