The Government’s War on Caffeinated Alcoholic Drinks

Taxes MUST be raised to support such prohibition.

Prohibitionists: Leave Us Alone!
The government has no business attacking caffeinated alcoholic drinks

John Stossel | January 6, 2011

Sometimes I drink Scotch and then, to wake myself up, I drink coffee. So what? Many people consume mixtures of caffeine and alcohol in drinks like rum and Coke. Again, so what?

But recently some college kids started drinking pre-mixed combos of alcohol and caffeine with names like Four Loko and Moonshot '69. Moonshot '69 is a pilsner beer with less than a coffee cup's worth of caffeine. Until recently, Four Loko contained 12 percent alcohol—about the same as wine—and as much caffeine as a cup of coffee. A few students, after drinking Four Loko, landed in the hospital with alcohol poisoning. Naturally, hysterical news reports followed.

A new bogeyman was born: caffeinated alcoholic beverages.

As night follows day, the Food and Drug Administration in November ordered beverage companies to lose the caffeine or shut down. The FDA called caffeine an "unsafe food additive." Phusion Products says it will now produce only noncaffeinated Four Loko. Moonshot '69 is off the market for now, which is bad news for Rhonda Kallman, who founded the company that makes it, New Century Brewing.

"There is nothing new about adults combining caffeine and alcohol," Kallman writes on her company website. "Who hasn't enjoyed a rum and Coke, Irish coffee, Kahlua or espresso martini? ... Moonshot '69 is a beer for beer drinkers that has been enjoyed by craft-beer lovers since 2004."

Her online petition states: "We the undersigned support the right of responsible adults to choose the beer of their choice. We support Moonshot69 and the rights of craft brewers across the country to produce new and innovative offerings for the beer drinking public. ... We call on the federal government to adhere to responsible regulation of alcoholic beverages that allows adults to enjoy the beer of their choice."

Unfortunately, Kallman tries to separate her product from higher-alcohol FDA targets, but Nick Gillespie of Reason magazine argues that the FDA has no business limiting the sale of any of the alcohol/caffeine combos.

"This has been going on for as long as there have been colleges and universities," he said. "You can go back to the Middle Ages, and booze and students go together like, I guess, beer and caffeine.

Aren't some drinks more dangerous than others?

"I don't think so. But when we raised the drinking age to 21 ... we told young people ... you can vote, you can enter a contract, you can go to war, you can die for your country, but if you want to drink and you're going to college, you better go off campus into a basement apartment somewhere and chug like there's no tomorrow because you don't know when you're going to be able to get drunk again."

He points out that by forbidding pre-21 adults from drinking openly around their elders, we deny them the chance to be exposed to responsible drinking.

About the ban on caffeinated alcoholic drinks, he added, "You can't minimize the overreach by the FDA."

I asked the FDA why Moonshot '69 is included on the ban list when it's not marketed to pre-21 adults and it contains less alcohol than more sugary drinks. They replied that Moonshot was referred to the agency by state attorneys general concerned about alcohol and caffeine. The FDA asked New Century Brewing for data indicating the legal standard for safety had been met, but no data was provided.

Kallman points out that the FDA "didn't fully research it either. So they put the onus on the small entrepreneur to have a scientist. But at the end of the day, it's 5 percent alcohol by volume and less than a half a cup of coffee of natural caffeine. Where will they stop?"

Never. Government never stops.

Gillespie added, "What we should be having instead of bans (of) beverages that people like and ... consume responsibly is ... a national conversation about how, after a couple of hundred years of the American experiment, we can get past the prohibitionist mindset and teach people how to drink responsibly like they do in France, Italy, Spain and many other parts of the world."

http://reason.com/archives/2011/01/06/prohibitionists-leave-us-alone/print

 

Sounds great!

 

Crazier than Loughner

Philadelphia urges FDA to put warning labels on SODAS

http://www.examiner.com/nutrition-i...phia-urges-fda-to-put-warning-labels-on-sodas

In a letter to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration today, Philadelphia’s Department of Health urged the federal government to require labels on sodas warning of the risks of weight gain, obesity, diabetes and other health problems.

The federal government has already issued Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommending that people drink less soda and other sugary drinks. However, since most people have never heard of the guidelines, a number of health groups, state and municipal agencies, and nutrition experts jointly called for the FDA to require health notices right on the bottle or can.

In the letter to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, the group said “In light of the overwhelming evidence linking soft drinks to serious diseases, consumers deserve to know—and soft drink labels should disclose—those health risks.”

Sodas and other sugary drinks are now the single largest contributor of calories to the diet, providing as much as 10 to 15 percent of teens’ caloric intake, according to one study cited in the letter.

“Our leading source of calories is a nutritionally worthless beverage that promotes obesity, diabetes, and other debilitating and expensive conditions,” said Michael F. Jacobson, executive director of The Center for Science in the Public Interest. “A warning label would not solve the obesity problem, but it would be a simple, inexpensive way to remind consumers of key facts when they are considering buying a major cause of the problem. A comprehensive effort to reduce the consumption of sugary drinks would be one of the single most important things that government could do to reduce obesity in children and adults.”

According to the CSPI even toddlers are drinking sugary fruit drinks and sodas and it estimates that one- and two-year-olds are drinking an average of seven ounces per day.

In addition to the Philadelphia Department of Health, signers of the letter include the American Public Health Association, the California Center for Public Health Advocacy, Shape Up America!, the New York State Department of Health, the Boston Public Health Commission and Walter C. Willett of the Harvard School of Public Health..

The letter advocates that warnings should be required on all beverages with more than 1.1 grams of sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, or other added caloric sweeteners per ounce. Some of the health messages proposed include:

* “The U.S. Government recommends that you drink fewer sugary drinks to prevent weight gain, tooth decay, heart disease, and diabetes.”
* “Drinking too many sugary drinks can promote diabetes and heart disease.”
* “For better health, the U.S. Government recommends that you limit your consumption of sugary drinks.”
* “This drink contains 250 calories. Consider switching to water.”


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