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Caffeinated Alcoholic Drinks May Be Illegal
Anonymusing writes "The FDA has announced an investigation into the safety and legality of alcoholic beverages containing caffeine. As a Wall Street Journal blog reports, two major beer companies, MillerCoors and Anheuser-Busch, stopped producing caffeinated alcoholic drinks last year after reports surfaced of increased negative effects compared to caffeine-free alcohol. CNN notes that, according to FDA rules, 'food additives require premarket approval based on data demonstrating safety submitted to the agency' — and caffeine is a food additive. The 26 targeted beverage makers have 30 days to respond."
There's a pretty huge problem with banning alcoholic beverages containing caffeine. The worst offenders are not drinks that come in a can from Coors, but mixed drinks, like Vodka Red-Bull's. You can make laws telling people not to mix their Vodka and Red Bulls together, but good luck enforcing them! (Honestly, you'd think common sense and a sense of taste would be enough...)
The truly awful thing is that, if this kind of law was enacted, the drinks it would actually kill would be wonderful, rich microbrew espresso stouts and imperial coffee stouts. Outlaw Coors Light if you must, but DO NOT FUCK WITH GOOD BEER.
Finally, the most damning argument against this sort of law of all is that stupid frat boys and girls will still wind up doing stupid things no matter what they're drinking. So what's the point eh?
We tried banning cannabis, cocaine, heroin, and a laundry list of other drugs as well. It hasn't worked out any better.
How long has this been around? Probably as long as coke. So now they think it should be made illegal. Idiots.
No, sorry, the summary is really short on vital information. Rum'n'cokes are not on trial here. There is a standard called GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe) that can be met, and rum'n'cokes fit this standard. And no one "thinks they should be illegal" - this is an announcement of a start of an investigation, not an announcement of a new law. That investigation MAY lead to a law, but it may not.
These are NOT rum'n'cokes they are talking about. "Sparks" (a Miller/Coors product), one of the products that is being reformulated, had as much alcohol as a can of beer but as much caffeine as a "stay awake" pill. The proportion of alcohol to caffeine is the issue. Think "rum'n'coke with a 'no-doz' pill chaser". Have a half-dozen of them and the caffeine will have you so hyped up you'll feel normal, or damned near it. A half a dozen rum'n'cokes would put you under the table - a half dozen of these little beauties would have you driving through the front door of the bar into the table while convinced that was your garage. Your coordination and function is shot to shit but you have enough energy to feel normal.
This is largely the same risk as people mixing Red Bull with alcohol, except in this case breweries are setting the proportions. You can't regulate stupid - college kids will always do stupid things like this - but at issue here is whether to ask companies to refrain from making this proportion intentionally. Faced with the evidence in the investigation, several manufacturers have voluntarily (as in, not under coercion from the Government) discontinued this class of caffeinated alcoholic beverages because of the possibility of accidental abuse due to the fact that the caffeine-to-alcohol ratio in these beverages tends to conceal the effects of the alcohol.
I'm not totally in favor of laws like this, but this isn't a law. At least not yet. It's an investigation that may or may not lead to a law. At that point, I'm still not sure about a law, but at least the risks would be identified and documented. Then manufacturers would probably just pull the product based on the information given before a law was even passed (and some of them already did!).
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
Potential disaster or not, as long as people are making an informed and deliberate choice I fail to see the need for government action.
Possibly because the informed part is often missing.
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.
I assure you, Jager and Redbull can come to no good end.
Though I don't think it's any business of the FDA.
Is it too much to ask for a society that lets people make their own mistakes? Must we be hemmed in by the moral and ethical mistakes of the stupidest amongst us? How long must the law protect us from ourselves? Have you as a public been fooled into thinking I'm unaware of the dangers of smoking, carousing, and general debauchery? I assure I'm well aware, and I don't care. Please stop making thing illegal for my own good. I'm old enough to choose to make my own mistakes. As should you be.
There's a large number of people here (myself included) that wouldn't know where to find drugs if they wanted them this week.
That's just because you don't want any this week. If you did, you'd know.
I don't want any this week, either, but I know someone who would know, if I did want any.
See, I don't think we've done anything, because the simple fact of the matter is that most people don't actually want to do anything harder than pot (which is why we should legalize it). I've never liked pot, but I've experimented considerably beyond that, and you know what? Drugs suck. I don't think they should be illegal, but I also don't think we are really reducing users any, because the vast majority of people who try them don't keep doing them.
Alcohol, for all its ills, is very easy to use and very easy to dose correctly. Mistakes still happen, but the truth of the matter is that doing a little of it feels good, and then it starts feeling bad and worse and worse the more you do. There is a very large swath of dosage of that drug that is just plain unpleasant, and that is usually enough to keep people from hurting themselves on it. Even so, people--usually novice users of it--sometimes go too far. No matter though, because when that happens, you just take them to the hospital and get their stomach pumped.
I say "no matter" because when you decide to do that, you're not deciding to go to jail after the hospital. And that is am important difference between legal drugs and illegal drugs.
Now, there are some people for whom the unpleasantness of drunkenness is not dissuasive. They will keep using until they are addicted. The same is true with any other drug you can think of--some people can't or won't control themselves, and you can't stop them from destroying their lives with substances. They are weak people, even when they are our friends and family members, and they get what they deserve.
Maybe it's in their character; maybe it's in their genes, but they are going to die in a gutter whether drugs are illegal or not.
So why do all of us have to have our rights trampled and lose our sovereignty over what we do with our own bodies just to vainly try to save degenerates who are not long for this world and are only trivially affected by these laws?
You, Mr. Freeman, have obviously not tried enough drugs or been around enough users to have any idea what you're talking about.