The Four Loko Ban Actually Makes Sense

I call this blogging destiny. Last night the girlfriend and I came across a can of Four Loko on the street. I’d never heard of it before, but I’m boring like that. Four Loko is an energy drink that has a lot of caffeine and a lot of alcohol. So much of so, in fact, that it’s being banned in Michigan. Fox News reports:

According to reports, some drinks like a single can of Four Loko, contain as much as much caffeine as five cups of coffee, and the alcohol equivalent of six bottles of beer.

Four Loko is not the only youth-marketed drink that combines alcohol and caffeine.

Another popular alcoholic energy drink is Sparks, which has been on the market since 2002. After MillerCoors, the producers of Sparks, was sued by The Center for Science in the Public Interest in 2008, it announced that caffeine would be removed from Sparks drinks. Other energy drinks to combine alcohol, extensive flavorings and caffeine include Tilt and Joose.

On the heels of a party that left nine Central Washington University students in the hospital after consumption of Four Loko last month, Yale Daily News reported that Washington attorney general Rob McKenna is asking the Food and Drug Administration to ban Four Loko.

And after seventeen of students were hospitalized due to drinking Four Loko, Ramapo College in New Jersey has joined several colleges and universities in banning Four Loko from its campus.

I tend to be rather skeptical of bans in Ann Arbor. The couch ban, for instance, doesn’t make too much practical sense to me. A ban on Four Loko, though, that’s crystal clear. A drink that’s full of alcohol and caffeine and is sold around young people? That’s a pretty savvy business plan. College students love the two major ingredients in this drink: alcohol and caffeine. Of course they’re going to buy it, and of course it’s going to be popular. And of course, it’s going to result in a lot of sick college students and…uh…regrettable nights. I can already picture the objections to my argument here, but really guys, is it too much to drink a Red Bull and then a Coors separately? Is that too hard?