Energy Drink Ban: The Beginning of the End?
If you’ve been keeping half an eye on the EF blog – I’ve often maintained that sooner or later – one of the “hardcore” energy drinks is going to wreck it for everyone else.
Simply put – someone wanders into a 7-11, walks out with a Spike Shooter or Redline, chugs it, and has some sort of bad reaction (palpitations, etc).
Kentucky legislators are looking at banning energy drink sales to minors (that’s anyone under 18).
[...] a student from Brodhead, Ky., inspired the bill when he related his experience with an energy drink for a contest called “It ought to be a law.”
“This young man bought an energy drink on the way to school one morning,” Ford said. “He had a situation that his heart started beating rapidly and he had a bad experience with it.”
We don’t know what the drink was – but presumably something with a fair whack of caffeine (either that or the said student had an extremely poor tolerance).
Kentucky lawmaker Danny Ford has placed a limit of 71mg caffeine per 12oz in his proposal. I guess that means no more Starbucks Latte’s (~ 77mg per 12 oz).
Actually, no, in order for the drink sale to be banned, it has to contain Taurine AND Glucoronolactone.
So that poor 7-11 clerk needs to memorize the ingredients list for every caffeinated beverage in store to make sure s/he doesn’t ban the wrong one.
“So I can have an energy drink that’s got 400mg of caffeine in it (which is a lot for you mehums out there…for me that’s…a couple of hours) but as long as it has no taurine, I can sell it to 11 year olds all day long.”
I can’t help wondering that if this proposal goes into law, there may be a follow-on into other states.
What we really need is to get some of the “hardcore” drinks out of the convenience stores and gas stations. Keep them available, but only through outlets that know exactly what they are dealing with, and aren’t going to sell a 6-pack of spike shooter to a pimply-faced 13 year old on his way to school.
71 mg caffeine is kinda low. That’s the same as two cans of Coca-cola, or 1 1/2 cans of Mountain Dew.
Maybe we should ban candy sales to kids as well. I’m sure there are more people with Type II Diabetes than with low caffeine tolerance.
25 Comments
My Nephew died last week from taking 4 cans of monster. He became moody and aggressive and depressive and shot himself. He didn’t left a note, he didn’t plan for it.
@ alvin. Last time I checked the ingredients in energy drinks weren’t downers, but quite the opposite… now if he had shot someone else, that I’d believe.
@ alvin if he didn’t leave a note then how do you know it was from taking “4 cans of monster” monster is not a downer, and if it was so addictive he would have gotten his fix then. You are a moron.
Alvin, good attempt at causing sympathy wont work though, just like Karma bad things happen to good people through no fault of there own. Welcome to reality and the fact that life is so precious and short. And that no one can control there future just by being nice. If in fact your story is true my depest condolances but remmeber life is hard.
We don’t need to get rid of any of the energy drinks. Little teenagers [like me] need to stop being stupid and ruining it for the other, smarter little teenagers.
This will sound stupid, but I have a goals list of things to do before I’m 18 and one of them is to try every non-alcoholic energy drink possible…..how am I supposed to complete my ambitions as well as be ambitious in the future if Kentucky makes it illegal?