By Jason Cunningham
The Federal Food and Drug Administration banning alcoholic energy drinks, like the popular Four Loko, is a laughable decision. The purpose of these drinks are to accelerate the inebriation process. It’s not as if anyone who’d be drinking this product isn’t aware of potential health consequences involved with consuming alcohol and caffeine. Underaged kids won’t be any less encouraged to drink without this product on the shelves.
Caffeine masks the impact of alcohol. Kids don’t need large, colorful containers to attract them to the idea. Mixing caffeine with alcoholic beverages has been extremely popular for the past decade and far before that. The common energy drink added to hard alcohol hit the partying scene far before manufactured drinks like Four Loko.
People have been responsibly drinking caffeine and alcohol together long before the usage of energy drinks. Rum in cola and Bailey’s Irish Cream (which is meant to be mixed with coffee) and other mixed drinks shouldn’t have different laws apply to them from the manufactured drinks that are being pulled.
Pointing the finger at products like Four Loko is an easy cop out taken by the FDA opposed to actually taking real action to strengthen the effectiveness of our drinking laws. Alcohol poisoning, auto accidents and sexual assaults can’t be attributed to Four Loko and products like it, yet this new restriction points the finger opposed to taking a real stab at the much larger problem.
If you binge drink you’re making a conscious decision that may result in sickness. Only inconsiderate assholes drive drunk, regardless of the amount of alcohol they’ve consumed. If someone commits sexual assault while they’re drunk they’d probably do it sober or just didn’t have the courage to while not intoxicated. There are no excuses for anybody – it’s the people who abuse the product that should be blamed for their negative behavior, not the product itself.
While it’s likely that people who drink alcohol mixed with energy drinks are more likely to leave a bar highly intoxicated and are more likely to try to drive, people who drink alcohol mixed with energy drinks are also more likely to binge drink. Binge drinkers are buying Four Loko and similar products with the intent of binge drinking – a terrible decision that often leads to more terrible decisions and usually bad consequences. The FDA must be aware that lots of college-aged people want to get fucked up beyond the ability of processing thought.
Four Loko, like all alcoholic products, can be used responsibly. Banning this product, which should remain legal, just gives partiers another pointless law to bypass by mixing their own like they’ve done before and continued to do through the existence of alcoholic energy drinks.
Fact: most students on college campuses drink. Fact: most students on college campuses are not 21 years of age or older. Drinking before the age of 21 isn’t legal, but most who are 18 years of age or older still manage to find a way to drink. This infringement of consumer rights by the government is easy to get around, just like the legal drinking age.
The mixed drinks that are made with alcohol and energy drinks are far more prominent and potent than the manufactured drinks that are becoming banned. So really, what’s the point when both alcohol and caffeine are still legal?
Four Loko maker Phusion Projects and companies like them shouldn’t be blamed for their product being unsafe when it’s perfectly obvious that their product isn’t meant to be safe. Cigarettes are still legal in every state and soon their packaging will display the dangers that abusing tobacco products cause. A suitable solution would’ve been to change the product’s packaging.
Slap a photo of a drunk driver mangled in a car wreck on every form of alcohol. Put the faces of people who’ve died as a result of some dumb shit’s choice to drink and drive on everything from beer, bourbon and beyond. Pulling out one witch to burn isn’t a solution. That’s enough to get a crowd of torch carriers to cheer until something else comes along that can be blamed and banned to mask the fact the there are no real steps being taken towards real solutions.