Professor: Most kids hadn't even heard of Four Loko until recently; now they're talking packie runs to Rhode Island
Dave Copeland, who teaches at Bridgewater State University, considers the hypocrisy of going after Four Loko without doing a thing about the underlying issue of binge drinking. He reports he surveyed his students at the beginning of the semester on how many had heard of Four Loko. Just 16%, he writes. Now, of course, they all know about it:
I have one student working on a feature story about students who drank it only after Four Loko made headlines. There are rumblings of "Rhode Island runs" to get the soon-to-be banned drink. Others are reverting back to Red Bull and Vodka, which, because it has less sugar, reduces the chances of going into diabetic shock after over-consumption ("and, like, no calories if you get sugar-free Red Bull," I overheard one student telling another). No one has been able to produce statistics showing an increase in alcohol-related deaths and emergency room visits that can be traced directly back to Four Loko.
Comments
Moral panic
"No one has been able to produce statistics showing an increase in alcohol-related deaths and emergency room visits that can be traced directly back to Four Loko."
I've been saying for weeks that the furor over Four Loko bears all the earmarks of a moral panic.
It's the same thing that happened to absinthe a century ago. The beverage is demonized because it's consumed by an "outgroup" who are supposedly causing social deviance. In the case of absinthe, it was artists, bohemians, and the working classes. In the case of Four Loko, it's college students. Plus ça change.
While I agree the hype only
While I agree the hype only provided advertising for Four Loko, the point of the campaign to ban it was based on PREVENTING the numbers from rising because they would have eventually.
OH MY GOD! You can see the
OH MY GOD! You can see the future!
Meanwhile
Binge drinking deaths and incidents involving other forms of alcoholic indulgence would be going down.
Of course, to you that would *prove* that there would be a reduction in binge drinking were it not for 4Loko, right?
Yeah. That.
They won't have to go to RI soon
I plan on setting up distribution points at colleges through out the state. I'm going to "import" it from RI and then dilute it with cough syrup and Dr. Pepper and sell it at a premium.
I'll be the Nucky Thompson of the Esplanade Empire.
If there was a "like" button
If there was a "like" button here, I would use it. So I'll settle for this comment.
Real Soon Now...
...Za-Rex EXTREEEEM!
It's a matter of size & proportion
http://www.latimes.com/health/os-caffeine-alcohol-mix-20101118,0,277094.story
Quoted:
One can of Four Loko =
One can of Four Loko = 23.5oz
So saying you have to have three 8.3oz red bulls to get the same caffeine as in Four Loko means they're similar...
80mg/8.3oz = 9.6mg/oz
260mg/23.5=11.1mg/oz
Or red bull has ~87% of the caffeine of 4 loko, not 1/3
Articles have said that four loko has the equivalent of 4 shots of vodka, lets say a red bull and vodka has one. By volume, then a red bull and vodka has ~75% of the alcohol by volume of four loko.
I don't get this math that claims these aren't nearly as strong. The caffeine content is similar, and the strength is chosen by the kid pouring his vodka at the party. You can make an argument that physically pouring the alcohol makes you more aware of how much you're drinking, along with the need to have 3 drinks rather than one can, but these drinks aren't that much weaker, if at all.
As a college administrator, what I would be worried about more is what these drinks do to peer pressure in a party atmosphere. At a part with red bull and vodka, you can just pour yourself red bull and no one will be the wiser that you've chosen not to drink. At a party with four loko, you don't have the option of leaving out the alcohol.
Not the biggest problem with 4 Loko
The bigger problem is that people were also mixing Four Loko WITH alcohol!
The can has as much alcohol AND volume as a bottle of wine...and morons were still mixing it with vodka, like it didn't have enough alcohol.
So instead of Red Bull and vodka, some morons were doing Four Loko and vodka mixers....then finishing the can.
A quick way to disaster.
One thing you should consider
One thing you should consider in your math is price. A red bull, on average, costs more than a four loko, so if you want the same amount of caffeine, you're going to have to spend more than three times as much. And that's not even considering the cost of alcohol to mix with the red bull. Almost no college party in America will serve an "open bar" of red bull and vodka. It's just too expensive. I've been to several that served loko in large quantities.
Also, I think the government has a right to control products that combine drugs such as alcohol and caffeine. Since neither caffeine nor alcohol is illegal and together they do not create an inherently toxic combination, I think the right thing to do is to establish reasonable limits of combination. If loko really has anywhere close to 500mg of caffeine, that seems way too high.