Michigan's alcoholic beverage control commission recently banned the sale of alcoholic energy drinks, most prominently Four Loko, which is sold in 23.5 oz. cans that are 11% abv and contain as much caffeine as a cup of coffee. This was necessary since combining stimulants and depressants is dangerous according to the commission. Apparently there have been incidents in which retarded college students and future Darwin Award winners drank too much of it too quickly and were hospitalized (the caffeine masks the drunkenness so people inadvertently drink a lot more than they should and in some cases they drive, mistakenly believing they are sober). Rather than hold people who make stupid choices responsible for their actions, they decided to ban these drinks for everyone.
If the state is going to ban Four Loko, then will they ban Jaegermeister and Red Bull? Dropping a shot of Jaeger into a pint of Red Bull produces the wonderful drink known as a Jaegerbomb. Plenty of other alcoholic and caffeinated drinks mix well together. People have been drinking rum and coke since the early 1900s and Irish cream mixes well with coffee.
This won't stop anyone from mixing alcohol and caffeine - they can just do it themselves with a shot of vodka and a can of Mountain Dew. And it won't prevent anyone from dying of alcohol poisioning caused by overdrinking - college students are capable of doing that with pretty much anything that has alcohol in it. It's just another useless law that will have no effect other than to limit consumers' choices while gratifying a few fun-hating dinosaurs on a government commission.
Another option is for people to buy illegal drugs. Since legal highs are getting less legal, might as well go full bore and go for the Acapulco Gold.
ReplyDeleteThe more the state criminalizes things, the more criminals it will create.
this would be more irritating if four loko didn't taste like a mixture of steel reserve, boone's farm, grape soda, and rotting donkey piss.
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