Want to test your drink for drugs? Local bar owners have refused to stock test cards which detect the presence of common date rape drugs, saying the move would be bad for business.

Joan Dyer, who runs the Rock On Natural Store on Front Street, said she had stocked $3,000 worth of the 20 pack prevention cards after seeing them advertised as a new invention in Time magazine several years ago.

She said initially some bar owners were interested in having the testing strips on hand but that eventually they all were against it.

?Some of them said if we are seen to be selling them it would appear we are saying it is going on here. My attitude was that if you are selling them then it?s the opposite because you are letting people know you want to protect them,? she said.

To date she has sold only a few packages in her store and she said that some customers find them amusing.

?People look and snigger or say surely we do not need that kind of thing,? she said.

With no one wanting to stock the test strips Mrs. Dyer is left giving them out to her daughter and her daughter?s friends.

She said young people often do not make the connection that even if they do not drink alcohol, it does not mean they are immune to having the drug mixed into a soda or soft drink. She said testing a drink that you fear may have been contaminated can protect other people who may be at risk.

?People feel if they carry them they are labelled as a drunkard and will need to protect themselves with something like this, but I?ve explained it can be put in something like a Coke.?

The test strips fit in a wallet and have two test patches which detect the presence of calamine/catamite and DHB - clinical names for some of the more common date rape drugs. Rohypnol, one of the strongest date rape drugs, is much easier to detect as it gives drink a blue tint.

Customers can check their drinks by putting a drop of it on the test patch. If catamite or DHB are present the patch will turn dark blue.

Last year the Bermuda Junior Service League began an awareness campaign on the drugs. They believed men were using it on women and also on other men for recreational reasons.

?It?s even sadder we are in this state that we have to do things like this but sadder even that people aren?t willing to take the initiative,? said Mrs. Dyer.

This week 42-year-old Albert Antonio Wolffe was found guilty in the Supreme Court of raping a French woman.

The victim told the court she believed Wolffe had slipped the drug into her glass of champagne while she was out celebrating New Year?s Eve.