This has been a bad week for: the makers of Four Loko, personal responsibility, intelligent regulation, and natural selection. The FDA put the hammer to Four Loko, announcing that caffeine was a dangerous additive to alcohol. In response, the makers of Four Loko agreed to remove caffeine from their products.
Of course, this will stop nothing. I wrote an editorial in the New York Daily News trying to help parents understand that one drink isn’t the cause of their kids’ alcohol issues:
I’ve seen people between the ages of 18 and 25 put alcohol in: coffee, soft drinks, diet soft drinks, Jell-O laced with pixie sticks (for the sugar – but it’s the same principle), and, of course, Red Bull. I’ve seen fat people pop diet pills in the middle of a bender to stave off the coming dawn. I’ve seen a person crush up Ritalin pills, place them in champagne, and call it a celebration. I’m just describing, not endorsing, these habits.
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This regulation is utterly futile. There is already a YouTube clip which instructs people how to make their own Four Loko.
You can read me taking a flamethrower to the Nanny State at the Daily News. It’s a preview of what I’ll be saying once FDA makes caffeine a schedule 4 controlled substance or something.
Four Loko ban a crazy idea: Do what you will, young people will still mix caffeine and alcohol [New York Daily News]
Earlier: Nannies Win: Four Loko Stops Shipments to New York State