Why we're cheering the proposed ban on caffeinated alcohol
The writing would seem to be on the wall for Four Loko and other beverages that combine alcohol and caffeine, as the FDA considers an outright ban of the combination. Anyone who is for sanity and safety in marketing should read it and cheer, not weep.
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Combining alcohol and caffeine is -- in a word -- crazy. Don't do it! It has an excellent chance of hurting you, and a fairly good chance of killing you. Recent news reports feature tragic victims of this deadly duo. As the companies and federal authorities decide what to do, you can make up your own mind to steer clear of this bad brew.
As I suspect everyone knows, alcohol is a central nervous system depressant. It is certainly possible to drink enough alcohol for it to be lethal -- people have. But the depressant effect tends to limit the damage, because people fall asleep or pass out before they reach a truly lethal level of intake. Alcohol is more likely to kill by impairing judgment, and responses behind the wheel of a car. But here, too, the intrinsically sedating effects of alcohol help limit these incidents- which are horribly too numerous as is.
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Caffeine, of course, is a central nervous system stimulant. We use it to help stay awake and alert, and it exerts just this effect even as you drink alcohol. But caffeine does nothing at all to combat the deleterious effects of alcohol on judgment, inhibition, reflexes, and coordination. You get just as drunk while getting jazzed on caffeine -- you simply stay awake and stimulated longer, so you wind up drinking more.
This combination would be bad enough if it required alternating booze and java. But the commercial products at the center of the current scandal combine highly concentrated alcohol- the equivalent of 5 beers in a single can- with a full mug of coffee's worth of caffeine. Before the can is set down, you are inebriated, but too wired on caffeine to know it.
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It's hard to imagine any argument for such products -- except that selling them makes money for someone. So does selling heroin and cocaine, which are also very bad ideas.
Combining caffeine and alcohol is, indeed, loco. It can be lethally loco, so it's a mistake you may not get to make twice. So don't make it even once. I recall a poster I had hanging on my dorm room in college that read: "good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from poor judgment." We do all need to learn by trying. But unfortunately bad judgment that kills you does not lead to good judgment -- it leads only to whatever final judgment we are destined to face, and the anguish of those left behind.
Please don't go there. No need to wait for the FDA. This stuff is crazy -- ban it yourself.
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