Controlling use of caffeinated alcohol is futile. Addicts will always get their drug until the pain from using is greater than its pleasure.
“FDA Bans Mixing Caffeine, Alcohol”
So read the headlines on the latest attempt of the nanny-state to control the use of drugs, in this case caffeine-infused alcoholic beverages. As usual, they are targeting the wrong thing.
The powers-that-be are attempting to control use. This is futile. Any alcoholic knows he can feel wide awake by drinking a cup of Joe, having an Irish Coffee or simply popping a NoDoz. Yet, the FDA persists, claiming “there is evidence that the combinations of caffeine and alcohol in these products pose a public-health concern.” Memo to the FDA: so does alcohol by itself, especially if the drinker has the disease of alcoholism.
The move follows a series of highly publicized incidents in recent weeks in which underage drinkers and others were hospitalized after consuming Four Loko, a 23.5-ounce beverage containing 12% alcohol by volume, which is the equivalent of over four and a half shots of 80-proof liquor. One student in New Jersey consumed three tins of Four Loko and “several” shots of tequila in the space of an hour, which resulted in a blood alcohol level of .4. This can be a lethal dose for a non-addict, who would generally be flat on his face long before consuming half that amount.
Alcoholics, students and otherwise, were adding caffeine to their alcohol well before Four Loko came along. There have likely been many tens of thousands of similar incidents prior to the current spate in which alcoholics have created their own caffeine-infused beverage. With Four Loko and similar drinks, it’s just more obvious. Now, with such beverages banned, alcoholics will simply go back to what they were doing before: substituting NoDoz or a regular Starbucks, with 260 mg of caffeine. All we are doing is papering over the real problem, which is the fact that millions of alcoholics go undiagnosed and untreated because law enforcement is too busy dealing with symptoms rather than meting out consequences for misbehaviors and, where addicts have proven to society an inability to use safely, coercing abstinence. Instead, they’re making the public think that something is being done when in fact the underlying problem isn’t even being addressed.