Earlier in October nine college students were reportedly “made sick” after consuming the popular alcoholic energy drink known as Four Loko. Some refer to it as “liquid cocaine” and some call it “knock out in a can” but what ever you know it by it seems this alcoholic beverage is catching some serious backlash because of the apparent marketing to kids using fruity flavors and catchy advertisements that are aimed at children and teens. Any drink that has the potential to harm a person should never be marketed to children and to top it off this so called energy drink has a dangerous shot of malt liquor in it.
Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna has put his hand in and announced he would try for a national restriction on the sale of caffeinated malt liquor.
"It's time to bring an end to the sale of alcoholic energy drinks," said McKenna, who serves on the state's Coalition to Reduce Underage Drinking. "They're marketed to kids by using fruit flavors that mask the taste of alcohol and they have such high levels of stimulants that people have no idea how inebriated they really are. They're packaged just like non-alcoholic drinks, but include a dangerous dose of malt liquor."
Experts say that because this potentially dangerous and easy to find drink has caffeine in it that the effects of the liquor is suspended when someone drinks it. That means that a person that usually can drink five beers drinks five of these drinks and it sneaks up on you. You become drunk when you felt fine shortly before and by this time you will be so drunk that you may not be ready. Investigators say one 23.5 ounce can of Four Loko is comparable to drinking 5 to 6 beers. That means if you can usually drink five beers to be drunk, after one of the energy drinks you should stop, but because the effects are suspended people just keep on drinking looking for that familiar “buzz”, by then you are way over limit.
The Central Washington officials have banned all alcoholic energy drinks on their campus and for good reason, not even those that are 21 can drink this beverage on their campus. Those that would shrug this event off and say well it is just all speculation or personal opinion for if this is a good or bad drink need only to do a little research on the companies past marketing strategies and a little research on the negative effects of energy drinks alone, such as the popular “Red Bull”.
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