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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."
Point-of-sale mixed drinks are specifically excluded. It's kind of arbitrary, yeah, but the FDA doesn't really have jurisdiction over that kind of thing. State and local health departments do, of course, and I can see some overzealous crusader trying to make a name for himself that way, but trying to get rid of classic caffeine-and-alcohol combinations like Irish coffee or rum and Coke would probably create too much of a backlash.
Hmmm, I wonder about chocolate and coffee liqueurs? I can't see them banning Kahlua any time soon, either.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Soon, we'll be smoking weed in a bar wondering how we can score some Jack & Coke.
We tried banning cannabis, cocaine, heroin, and a laundry list of other drugs as well. It hasn't worked out any better.
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.