Students and lawmakers alike have been going loco for Four Loko, although for different reasons.
"We are going to go crazy to protect our children from going crazy over Four Loko," said New York Councilman James Sanders Jr. about the latest malt beverage mania sweeping the nation.
Four Loko, following in the line of Sparks, Tilt and Bud Extra, is next in the hit list of caffeinated alcoholic beverages to be banned or reformatted according to state government regulations.
Earlier this week, New York State Governor David Paterson and State Liquor Authority Commissioner Dennis Rosen announced an agreement with Phusion Products LLC, the manufacturer of Four Loko, to halt shipments to New York, effective Friday.
Phusion agreed to eventually change the recipe of the beverage to remove the caffeine and other additives deemed harmful in combination with alcohol in order to meet government standards.
Days after Four Loko was banned, a report issued by the Food and Drug Administration stated that beverages that are high in alcohol content and contain caffeine and other additives present a "public health concern." Some analysts also suspect that a full ban on these types of beverages seems imminent.
Four Loko, along with several of its competitors (including Joose, a flavored malt beverage with caffeine, ginseng and taurine), was singled out in the report.
Phusion Products and United Brands Company, the maker of Joose, both responded in statements promising to compromise with regulators and disagreeing with the FDA's findings.
"While we don't agree with the notion that mixing caffeine and alcohol is inherently unsafe, we do agree with the goal of keeping adults of legal age who choose to drink responsibly as safe and as informed as possible," Phusion stated in an open letter issued to the public.
The FDA notified other manufacturers of caffeinated alcoholic beverages last year that it had never specifically approved of the addition of caffeine, taurine, and guarana (a plant similar to caffeine) and would study the effects of those additions.
The findings of these studies, released on Wednesday, alerted the makers of seven caffeinated alcoholic beverages that their products cannot stay on the market in their current forms.
Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, the FDA's principal deputy commissioner, stated that caffeine and additional supplements mask the high alcohol content that the drinks possess. The FDA's report gave the companies 15 days to modify the drinks' contents or risk a possible seizure of products under federal law.
Some officials are also concerned that the taste of these drinks makes them appealing to underage drinkers, who are more likely to consume alcohol in this sugary, fruit-flavored form.
"Let these rulings serve as a warning to anyone who tried to peddle dangerous and toxic brews to our children," said New York Senator Charles Schumer at a press conference. "Do it and we will shut you down."
Schumer, who has urged the Obama administration to outlaw the beverages, called the FDA ruling "the nail in the coffin of these dangerous and toxic drinks."
Local stores such as Tops Markets and Wegmans have preemptively stopped selling Four Loko.
Some UB students support the ban of Four Loko.
"I drank about a quarter of a can, and it was disgusting…[it tasted] like sugary battery acid," said Brian Kane, a graduate student in education.
European countries with less-strict alcohol restrictions faced similar dilemmas concerning "alcopops," a portmanteau of "alcohol" and "pop" flavored alcoholic beverages.
Alcopops have existed in various forms since the 1980s.
"We had a huge increase of drunk underage people, and a lot of women were affected likely due to the sweeter taste masking the alcohol," said Matthias Schmid, a doctorate student in aerospace engineering.
Schmid referenced his homeland of Germany and how the ban of "alcopops" had beneficial effects on underage drinking.
"When realizing that underage drinkers had limited income to spend, they raised taxes on the drinks, making them less attractive to people without much money," Schmid said. "Of course, if they had just [asked] everyone [for proof of identification] like they should have, it probably wouldn't have been that big of a problem."
According to Schmid, the increase in taxes also cut down on instances of underage alcohol abuse or "coma drinking."
While some people object to the scrutiny and enjoy the drink in its current form, companies like Phusion have already agreed to change the drinks to appease lawmakers, regulators and concerned citizens.
Expect to see a decaffeinated version of Four Loko and other variants sometime in the near future.
E-mail: news@ubspectrum.com
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
