Throughout the entire year, we’ve been assailed by politicians and voters ranting about how the government is getting too intrusive and too controlling and it should just let people make their own decisions and let the free market decide.
That lasted less than two weeks, when the beverage Four Loko started sending people to the hospital. Now governments across the country are stepping in to ban the drink on the grounds that it’s dangerous.
Why is it dangerous? Well, because people are dumb, that’s why.
Here’s the deal: Four Loko is a flavored alcoholic “energy drink.” A 23.5-ounce can boasts an alcohol content of 12 percent (six to comply with some states’ regulations), which is about the same as sparkling white wine, or on the higher end of the alcohol content scale for table wines. Some beers also have 12 percent or higher alcohol contents (but those are technically “barley wines,” for you fellow beer snobs).
Four Loko also contains per can (according to the company website ) the same amount of caffeine as a tall Starbucks coffee: 240 milligrams.
So one can of this stuff will get you buzzed nicely, in two respects.
The problem is not that these things have a significant alcohol and caffeine content; it’s that people are chugging several cans at a sitting — some of them underage people who have no business drinking booze in the first place. Read the news stories about all the people who’ve been hospitalized or killed due to consuming Four Loko and you’ll notice a recurring theme: that the victims consumed multiple cans of the stuff. It doesn’t matter if you’re drinking Four Loko, beer, wine, tequila, vanilla extract — if you ingest more than 70 ounces of a beverage with 12 percent alcohol content, you’re going to be one hurting puppy.
But hey, personal responsibility is so one Election Day ago — time to get overprotective Uncle Sam to step in! And it will, perhaps by tomorrow; the FDA could rule that caffeine is not a suitable additive for alcoholic beverages and thus effectively ban Four Loko in all 50 states, including the five that have already banned it at the state level.
By the way: cigarettes, with their dozens upon dozens of harmful chemicals that cause 438,000 premature deaths in the US each year? Still available.
Sure. Makes perfect sense.
EDIT: As of November 18, the FDA is holding off on a ban. However, the Massachusetts Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission will, through an emergency regulation, ban “malt beverages” that contain caffeine and other stimulants. Technically this means beer with caffeine added through infusing the brew with coffee — which is delicious — will be illegal when the new regulation goes into effect Monday. Thanks, nanny state. Screw you too.
The views and opinions in the Enterprise blogs are those of the author and are not neccessarily shared by Falmouth Publishing.
ha ha – excellent point about cigarettes still being legal – and well written piece! Thanks for writing it!
Wait till you have your teenager almost die because he does not know how the level of one Loco will effect him. It is too dangerous, too easy to not understand what this one can can do .. much less a couple. It should not be allowed to be anymore that beer.
Jeff, if a teenager got his hands on any kind of alcoholic beverage, there are larger concerns to address than what’s in it. I would hazard to say the average teenager has no grasp of how any level of alcohol consumption will affect him, from one cheap beer to multiple cans of Four Loko.
The product is intended for what I’ll call “adults plus”: the people who can legally purchase it are three years past legal adulthood, thus three years past when they can vote, join the military, buy porn, etc. If they lack the proper judgment to avoid over-consumption, that is and should be their problem and their responsibility.
I also have to ask: why beer as a standard for alcoholic content? What makes that a “safe” alcohol content? What would prevent a person from consuming multiple servings of anything — which is the real issue here — just because it has less booze in it? And would you apply that standard to other beverages, thus effectively banning — well, damn near everything that ISN’T beer?
I agree about your comment on the level of the alcoholic content. Why is it you can ask? But more importantly is .. that it is a measure. It is a measure that is understood once you start drinking or learned from experience. And yes I learned as a teen as well but that learned level of intake was a aid to understanding what you can do and not do.
It does not matter that you do not believe that the beer standard in existance should be there .. the fact is .. it is. The other fact that you need to understand is the there is situation with Four Loko that needs to be addressed. It is killing teens … It damn near killed my son. You can say there is a bigger issue … easy for someone who probably does not have children to say. All kids .. good, bad, or inbetween experiment and you as a parent good, bad or inbetween can not control every little moment that they are not with you. So you can judge all you want.
The fact is this drink that is intentionally marketing to the young and made to look innocent like an energy drink is killing unsuspecting young people and you would rather question the parents and the kids then address it.
Would you feel the same way if a loved one died from this drink?
I agree Mike, and Jeff let’s parent our own kids and not ask or expect the government to do it.
Jeff, your beer standard is utterly arbitrary (and also, despite your claim, not in use as a regulatory yardstick).
It’s a fine point for comparison’s sake (X Four Lokos is equivalent to X beers) but not as a basis for regulation. There’s no rationale behind your suggestion other than it’s a common point of reference, which is a weak standard. I could as easily say booze should have no more alcoholic content than Nyquil or vanilla extract, but without a sound reason based in science and hard data, it’s just me throwing out a random number.
And as I said before, stating that an alcoholic beverage has to be no more potent than beer means we can say good-bye to rum, tequila, vodka, scotch, whiskey, brandy…all the boozey products people got hammered on way before Four Loko every hit the stores. That is a ridiculous degree of overkill.
(Besides, “beer” has a wide range of alcohol contents. I’ve had beer as weak as three percent up to nine or ten percent. That’s hardly a universally static piece of datum upon which to build a standard for regulation).
I have to dispute your “marketing to kids” argument. How is it marketed to kids? What is the advertising campaign for this stuff anyway? I’ve never seen an ad for it anywhere. I didn’t know the crap existed until this furor.
And it still doesn’t address the more pressing issue, and that’s how it gets into an underage buyer’s hands. If a teenager gets ahold of this stuff it’s because someone gave it to him, bought it for him, or a lousy retailer sold it to him. Why not crack down on the people directly enabling the behavior rather than targeting the manufacturer?
And I would feel exactly the same way I do now if, in your hypothetical world, I had a child who died from over-consuming Four Loko: it would have been his fault, not the drink’s. Just like it would have been his fault if he’d consumed way too much (for example) beer.
Screw you and your damn “let’s us parent our own kids” comments! Obviously you are not a parent or a fool one! Wait until a loved one you know dies. No matter what kind of parent you are … teenagers experiment even from the best of parented families. It is unbelievable that you would even use that .. when you know and I know these companies are targeting the very young with their marketing this product like it is an energy drink. Teenagers are enamored with evergy drinks .. gives them a caffein high. Get a friggin clue .. both of you!
You’re reacting purely out of emotion, and that’s one of the larger problems here: people are angry and upset over something that happened to their kids and they’re raising a huge stink to have something they decided was unreasonably harmful removed from society — while simultaneously diverting any responsibility away from their own kids.
How many people have consumed Four Loko and had no horrible medical crisis? I willing to bet the numbers would indicate far fewer than those who have suffered alcohol poisoning (which is in fact what these cases are), but this is the case of the squeaky wheels getting the grease.
A few years ago the outrage was those Wheelie sneakers; a few kids had bad accidents while using them, and then the parental outcry began, then the call for banning the product followed. In a few more years a relatively small handful of kids will be harmed by improperly or irresponsibly using a product that is perhaps ill-designed but otherwise not inherently hazardous, and we’ll be in this same situation.
Meanwhile, what are kids, teens, or young adults being taught here? That if they do something dumb like power-chug alcoholic beverages or careen blindly into traffic they’re not at all responsible for their decisions? That the blame can be shifted onto the product and away from the user? Where is the sense of personal responsibility and freedom of choice and interference from the government that was so prevalent a theme in this recent election?
Parental indignation is one of the most powerful but most unfocused and often misused forces in the universe. Where is this outrage to ban cigarettes, something that has a mutli-generational history of causing premature death via diseases that are often slow and painful, and very often a burden to our health care system?
And Jeff, calling something an “energy drink” is hardly marketing to kids, and — once again — does not at all address the point I’ve made about access. Elmo could go on Sesame Street with a can of Four Loko in his hands, but unless some adult aids and abets a kid in obtaining it, the marketing is virtually a non-issue.
You say your kid ran afoul of Four Loko. Is he a teenager? Because that seems to be what you’re implying If so, then maybe what you need to do is find whoever got it for him and drag his butt to the police station and press charges. Then chew your kid out for drinking before his rightful age. Hold the people actually responsible for the problem responsible.
No, I’m not a parent, but you don’t have to be a parent to exercise common sense.
Jeff,
I’ve got to agree with Mike here. Parents need to educate their children about the dangers of alcohol, drugs, cigarettes and caffeine (it is a poison after all). And I don’t want to belittle your own situation but did you ever talk to your child about alcohol? Do you know who gave the Four Loko to him?
Blaming everyone else for something your son did is not going to help him. He needs to learn personal responsibility as well and you need to educate your son.
@Jeff… LOLz
From what I understand, this stuff is essentailly a “poor man’s speedball” (which is how humorist Mike Daisey once described alternating sips of beer and coffee). To me, the biggest danger there is that excessive consumption would bring about both the impaired judgment and reflexes of drunkenness while simultaneously imparting the sharp jitters of the caffeine high, thus allowing the drinker to stagger, sing karoake, and make buffoonishly clumsy sexual overtures in a much faster and more spasmodic fashion. Sounds like Slapstick In A Can to me.
Many teenagers are injured or killed in car accidents every year. We should probably ban cars to avoid this problem.
Kate .. you are an [bad word omitted by moderator because it was bad].
The company caved… http://www.phusionprojects.com/media_reformulation.html
Placing the blame in one place more than another doesn’t seem like the fair way to handle a situation. Personally I believe that putting high quantities of caffiene in an alcoholic beverage and marketing it as an energy drink…and that is exactly what it looks like…is reprehensible Un/fortunately it is not illegal to do that. Cigarette companies have been marketing to the young for years. The hypocrisy of our government, of our society, makes me want to throw my hands up in disgust. However given that red bull, coffee, other caffienated items, cigarettes and all alcoholic beverages are still being offered to society than I can’t really say boo about another drink that combines the two. So if people want to make this drink than I don’t think we have a right to restrict it.
That being said, teenagers as a group are barely smarter than the average bear. They are going to experiment regardless of how much their parents may or may not have educated them. To imply that someone was not a good enough parent because their teenager drank this crap is not fair. I think it is easier to look on this subject unemotionally if we do not have children already. In an ideal world people would use common sense all the time but that is expecting us to be perfect and the last time I looked the human race is far from perfect. When bad things happen to a loved one it is difficult to look on a situation objectively, that is a fact and none of us are exempt to it…so it would be nice if everyone were a bit more understanding.
In regards to personal responsibility, I think this society doesn’t like it. I think we all need to teach our kids the importance of personal responsibility but let us not treat every person who has a child who makes a bad decision as someone who has failed in educating their children.
To be fair, I don’t seen any accusations of bad parenting here. The question was asked if Jeff talked to his kid about alcohol use, which is I think a fair question.
Too many parents think the best way to address tough topics like alcohol, drugs, and sex is to not talk to their kids beyond saying “Don’t do it.” Then when something goes wrong, the responsibility is shifted away to someone else. Parents need to be honest about the tough topics and demystify them a bit. After all, telling a kid “Don’t drink booze” and leaving him at that is just teasing him with forbidden fruit, and one thing teens excel at is testing the boundaries placed on them by adults.
I don’t disagree with you but the implication was there in the responses. And many teenagers still make very poor decisions EVEN if parents have discussed the dangerous of alcohol and drugs.
I personally don’t see even implied accusations of bad parenting, just general comments about parental involvement and responsibility. I do however see very clear implications that a teenager, who should not be drinking alcohol at all, did so, and that I think is a critical point in this debate — much more so than anyone’s parenting skills.
Somehow, a person who legally cannot buy alcoholic beverages apparently got his hands on some. That means at best there is a negligent liquor store employee who needs to be called to the carpet, and at worst someone deliberately provided the stuff to someone, in all likelihood knowing full well it was going to someone who shouldn’t have it.
A teenager can be excused for ignorance when it comes to drinking experience, but by the same token he should be held accountable for engaging in behavior he knows is illegal. And by no means should it be grounds for banning a product; that is just diverting blame away from the people who made conscious choices and does not address any root problems.
Mike, you make perfect sense. :D
My point is that you do not know that the person who obtained the alcohol or the place that sold it was not somehow called out on the carpet for the incident. You also do not know if the teenager was held accountable for his action. I think the point of this started with whether or not Four Loko should be banned regardless of any other factor. I can empathize with this parent’s frustration for something like Four Loko to be available at all. Also immediately asking this individual whether or not he had spoken to his son about the dangers of alcohol is almost like asking a rape victim what they were wearing when they were attacked…an extreme example perhaps but criticising a victim (b/c that is what Jeff and his son appear to be) is going to be make the conversation heated and defensive.
I think we’d be purposefully blind to deny the marketing of this drink and how it might influence teenagers to be interested in it. I do not think it should be banned but it might be nice if the company owned up to it’s own moral and ethical responsibilities. The other point is that there are going to be people who think this sort of irresponsible marketing and product creation should be banned in an attempt to protect our youth from their own stupidity. We can not forget that an emotional responses is human and should be expected. We also have to remember that root problems come from more than one place…parents, individuals, society, government and the corporation. What is wrong with our world when a company thinks it’s a good idea to make a drink with alcohol AND caffiene…I mean seriously?!
I continue to refute the whole “marketing to kids” argument. How? By virtue of the fact it’s an “energy drink”? Because it comes in a colorful can? Because it has a wacky name? This is a vague, ill-defined claim. Putting advertisements in a magazine explicitly intended for teens is marketing to teenagers. A billboard deliberately placed across from a high school is marketing to teens. Anything else and the argument doesn’t hold water.
I don’t agree with the rape victim analogy because there is an issue of choice here. No one chooses to be raped; everyone chooses to drink. The latter is the result of a conscious decision — under-informed, perhaps, but there was a choice.
And Four Loko is hardly a new or unique creation (I’ve personally tried a number of beers made with coffee over the years), nor is the combination inherently dangerous. Read the news stories and you’ll see the health issues have all been alcohol poisoning, plain and simple. The alcohol/caffeine combo is not causing the adverse reactions and the media is failing to do its job to inform the public by conveniently ignoring that fact.
Clearly the combination of alcohol and caffeine is to blame. I guess we should also ban mixing beer and coffee. You shouldn’t be able to get both in the same place. Kahlúa has only been around since 1936 guess we should ban that too. And a lot of porters are made with coffee in them, so long to those as well. (I know this because porters keep me awake.) (End of sarcasm.)
There’s nothing wrong with a drink which has both alcohol and caffeine in them as long as the person ingesting them is aware of what they contain and the potential risks. Once again, cigarettes are far more harmful to the people smoking them and the people around them yet they are *STILL* not banned in this country.
But it all takes away from the main point of this article was that a lot of people were campaigning on smaller government and less government intrusion and already we’ve got the government intruding in our lives.
Someone’s son almost died, that’s sad. I saw a guy laid out on the pavement after a motorcycle accident on the highway last night. But it doesn’t mean we’re going to ban motorcycles.
Banning things is not the way to prevent harm. Educating people on risk is.
We will have to agree to disagree regarding marketing. I understand your point and given a strict definition you’re right. But I think that we are naive if we think that the color, flavor etc does not make it more applying to youth. That being said, it is vague and circumstantial and wouldn’t stand up in a court of law.
I didn’t say the analogy is perfect but in regards to the father he didn’t have the issue of choice. The son did but not the father and he would be the one being criticised for parenting techniques.
According to the experts they would have to disagree with your statement about there being nothing inherently dangerous with mixing caffiene and alcohol…
“Experts say that the high levels of both alcohol and caffeine in the beverages create a “wide-awake drunk” that makes it difficult for people to realize how intoxicated they are and enables them to consume far more alcohol than they otherwise would without passing out.”
Additionally having coffee in beer is a drink created for taste and not for a high. Putting caffiene in this drink is strictly for giving you an additional high.
Jeff,
Here’s a novel idea, teenagers shouldn’t be drinking to begin with. The government ruled that about 30 years ago or so. Sure there are plenty that are going to be imbibing regardless of the rules, but lawfully they are already banned from drinking 4 Loko. Why should a legal beverage be banned because it is being abused by those that should not be drinking it to begin with?
I’m a 14 year “step parent” of two, now 27 and 20 years old.
When the kids were getting to their mid to late teens, we, as responsible parents, TALKED(!) to the kids. It wasn’t a “don’t do this, don’t do that” discussion, it was more of a Q&A session. They asked questions, we answered honestly. But basically it came down to us telling them that we KNOW that they’re going to experiment, and to use their best judgement.
If kids want alcohol, they’re going to get it. (and if you’re denying experimenting before you were legal, your pants are smoldering)
When all was said and done, the the kids promised that if they were out drinking that they would never drive or be a passenger with someone under the influence, and that we’d pick them up anywhere any time, with no judgement passed. Sure, we’ve had a few inconvenient 2-3 am “can you pick me up” calls, but we know the kids are safe. Better the inconvenience of a quick drive than a lifetime of regret, and shoulda/coulda wouldas……
Completely agree with where you stand. It’s all about responsibility. Can’t blame acts of stupidity on anything else, especially not alcohol, a DEPRESSANT. Glad theres someone else like me out there.
i only know this…4loko is no worse than steele reserve ….xcept it tastes way better…thank god u dont have too buy sooo many to feel good…. as with any alcohol…drink responsibly!