MIAMI — Jhoann González, a Colombian living in Miami who was given a drug in a glass years ago to steal, wondered what to do to prevent something like this from happening to other people and today it exports its test strips for detecting GHB and ketamine to Mexico, Canada, Australia, Israel and Europe.
González, 48 and a resident of the United States for more than 20 years, is an example of the saying in Spanish “there is no evil that does not come for good”, since the idea for his product, called TestMyDrink, came from a traumatic experience much more frequent than we believe, according to what he says in an interview with EFE.
Without him realizing it, a young woman he met at a club spiked González’s drink with ketamine. He woke up hours later in a hospital with no memories or anything of value.
One of the two sides of the test strips that his company developed and patented in a long and difficult process is used to find out if there is ketamine in a liquid and the other to detect the so-called date rape drug or GHB ( gamma-hydroxybutyrate).
Just put a drop in the place marked A and B on one side and wait for it to dry. If it stains dark blue, the drink is contaminated.
EVIL IN A DRINK
“You can’t imagine the number of people who write to us. The evil is between colleagues, classmates, even between husbands and friends”, says the businessman, who before turning to the TestMyDrink project (Try my drink) was engaged in foreign trade.
González says “it happens in all parts of the world” and very frequently in Latin America.
However, in Latin America, he only managed to open an export line to Mexico.
The strength of the dollar against local currencies makes his product very expensive, but also – he says – in countries like Colombia people prefer to spend their money buying bottles of alcohol instead of buying a test for avoid “frights,” Gonzalez says.
In this regard, he says without revealing details that in a few months he and his partners will launch another product, in this case to make it harder to pour a substance into someone else’s drink.
The woman confessed to drinking alcohol before drowning her 4-year-old son and one-year-old baby, authorities said.
Most of TestMyDrink’s customers are women, but González says with the voice of experience that more men are victims of drinks with hidden drugs, although most do not report it because their partners would find out that they were going to be unfaithful with the others.
“Many are business people who are in other cities, alone in hotels,” he says.
Last week, the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, adjacent to Miami-Dade County, released videos taken of two youths at the home of a man who met them at an area casino.
In the videos, the three of them are seen drinking alcohol, then they search the house to take anything of value before he wakes up from lethargy caused by a drug put in his drink.
Of course, there are also women who are victims of this crime and especially drugs to sexually abuse someone like GHB, but González says the difference is that they usually react suspiciously to strangers, whereas they are less cautious with strangers.
DATES OF RAPE
The US Department of Health and Human Services Women’s Bureau reports on its website that nearly 11 million women nationwide who were raped were drunk or drugged.
Speaking of so-called “date rape” drugs, the Bureau warns that the rapist “could be someone you know well, someone you meet through friends, or someone whom you have just met”.
González has experienced cases of all these types thanks to his direct contact with TestMyDrink customers, since the strips are purchased by companies, universities and institutions, but also by individuals.
Among his clients are the US military, the police in Jacksonville (Florida) and the municipal authorities of West Hollywood (California), he says to give an idea of the scale of the problem.
A survey of 969 people this year by the US Addiction Centers website alcohol.org found that 44% of men and 56% of women said they had been drugged at some point by introducing substances into drink or food.
In 52% of cases, it was when they were at university.
Madison Herman, a resident of Ohio, assures that the events occurred on January 6 and that two days later she contacted the authorities.