The Call to Ban Energy Drinks
In the last couple of months we have seen a surge in the variety of new energy drinks coming to Australia and New Zealand.
Energy drink fans have been ecstatic, but governments are now rearing their ugly heads.
Energy drink companies found a loop hole in the Australia and New Zealand food law concerning caffeine. If they call their product an “energy supplement”, they can then bypass the law and use the same energy formula as they do in the USA.
The news has been flooded this weekend with articles about governments wanting to ban this practice and ban the highly caffeinated drinks as some irresponsible teens were sent to the school nurse with some caffeine reactions at the end of last week. Many of the articles I read contain lies and exaggeration of the facts regarding these drinks and totally loose perspective when it comes to the energy drink market and consumption among teens.
Here are some facts that will help put this ridiculous issue in perspective. In Australia;
- Alcohol counts as 13% of all deaths in the 14-17 age group in Australia.
- 1 death and 60 injuries occur every weekend among 14-17 year olds that are alcohol related.
- In 2007 at 177,000 children under the age of 18 are abused or neglected.
- In 2007 240 children under 18 were killed as the result of child abuse.
So were are all the stats and stories related to caffeine overdose and caffeine related deaths among teens? When’s the last time a teen drank 5 energy drinks and got behind the wheel of a car and killed someone? Well frankly, there aren’t any. Is Australia really concerned with the safety of its teens when there are liquor stores almost on every corner and it appears teens have easy access to this type of drink…..?
It seems to me the Australian government should be putting their energies elsewhere and leave energy drinks or so called “energy supplements” alone!
http://www.ama.com.au/node/4762
http://www.stopchildabusenow.com.au
5 Comments
I just want to know what actually getting them banned will accomplish. Sure, no more teens will be sent to the nurses office for being stupid. The cans say, limit 2 or 3 cans a day (don’t remember which) it’s no one’s fault but the people who drink too many for what happens to them. Same goes for smokers and alcoholics, the warning is there, it’s not the companies problem that people can be stupid.
As Paul Rudd said in Role Models, “When someone asks you to try drugs or alcohol just say ‘no thanks, i’ll have a minotaur’ ” they should PUSH the energy drinks maybe as an alternate for alcohol. i understand it wont do much, but for someone just looking to alter their mood it can help.
.. “We’re selling nuclear horse piss for $3 a can to our nation’s youth.”
Anything in history that has been banned will always have a black market. Energy drinks are no exception.
If they banned energy drinks, couldn’t you just get around it by called it “high caffeine soda?” Or would they lower the legal caffeine content and ban using traditional energy drinks ingredients? That’d screw a lot of companies over, especially Starbucks because they have some really caffeinated drinks.
Australia’s government is like one big PTA: self-righteous, but secretly impotent and lazy. They take on easy targets and sensationalize scapegoats like energy drinks to draw attention from the real problems they’re not fixing.