Should FourLoco be banned?

Is it the Federal Government’s job and duty to regulate these beverages?

Yes.

Yes, I understand people have gotten sick off of drinking it but it is there fault for binge drinking!! They could have done the same off of any hard liquor.

No hard liquor has an additive that keeps you awake so you can drink more of it. Yes, you can still die because of it, but you’re more likely to just pass out if you aren’t an idiot.

Basically, no one has an excuse to drink irresponsibly. But that doesn’t mean that companies and corporations have the right to make irresponsible products.

It’s an enjoyable beverage. It just needs a warning label with skull n bones on it. More than 2 of them, or mixing them, is very dangerous.

1 or 2 of them, over the course of 6 hours at a dance party or whatnaught, is quite enjoyable.

Several states have already banned it and I think they are right to do so considering the damage that has been done. From what I’ve heard, since the company that makes Four Loko has been having issues with some states anyway, they are already planning to remove caffeine and two other ingredients in order to keep their products on the market.

I tried one of these last night. It wasn’t anything special.

Underage kids are going to drink to excess. This is just the drink of the moment. Maybe we should worry about why so many 16–20 year olds are binge-drinking rather than banning the latest fad in order to protect them from themselves. hint: Keeping alcohol illegal for this group probably contributes substantially to their binge drinking.

I’ll sleep better at night knowing this horrible FourLoco is off the streets with it’s sweet siren’s call promising liquor and caffeine. Hurting our children like this. They no doubt deserve regulation for forcing liquor down our children’s throats and keeping them awake in the process.

Kids should be out drinking crown and coke, baileys and coffee, or vodka and red bull, just like their parents before them. Good respectable drinks from good respectable companies.

Ok, I know nothing about FourLoco, so someone’s going to have to help me – how is it any different from having a rum & coke?

@papayalily Authorities say Four Loko equals a six-pack of beer and five coffees.

I’m not going to shed any tears about its departure. A 24 ounce can—which is marketed as a single serving—contains as much alcohol as a typical bottle full of wine and as much caffeine as 5 cups of coffee. That’s enough alcohol to make most people falling, down, puking drunk. But the caffeine fools the brain and you don’t realize you are getting hammered till it wears off. Because the caffeine wears off before the alcohol, it isn’t unusual for those using these sorts of drinks to pass out and then puke all over themselves while out. Is this something we really need marketed to college kids as an in thing to drink?

We have Irish Coffee for those who want to combine the twin psychoactive, caffeine and alcohol. And most of us know better than drinking so much Irish coffee we pass out from it.

Despite having Four Loco in my fridge as I type this… yes, I’m comfortable with them being taken off the shelves. It’s too easy to overdo it with a drink like that, and I feel like they are geared towards younger drinkers, which makes me worry about the judgment of those that are most likely going to be consuming them.

The concern is that caffeine masks sensory cues of being drunk. It’s not just Four Loko that’s under scrutiny, but drinks by three other manufacturers as well.

There seems to be several deaths attributable to caffeinated alcoholic beverages, particularly among inexperienced underage drinkers who may not fully understand exactly how what they’re drinking is different than a Red Bull.

As for Jaeger Bombs… just because 1000 people do a stupid thing, it’s still a stupid thing.

@kenmc Ooooo. Thanks. Yeah, then I’m totally down with it being removed.

FourLoko doesn’t hurt our children, our children hurt themselves. I for one enjoy FourLoko responsibly. I like the “bang for my buck” that FourLoko gives plus it is quite tasty. Even if there is caffeine in it I still know when to stop. I’ve been drunk plenty of time and got sick, it’s not fun. The caffeine doesn’t “trick” me, I’m just not a dumb ass. If you drink it and get sick you will learn next time. If you drink it and die I guess that’s just natural selection running it’s course. If anything I say leave it up to the states to ban it or not, but the Federal Government doesn’t need to be regulating this.

@LegalizeIt11 The states have already started banning it, that is why the makers of FourLoko are already planning to remove the caffeine and two other ingredients.

@BarnacleBill What’s a Jaeger Bomb?

@papayalily redbull & jaegermeister.

There’s plenty of things that fall under the 80/20 rule – we have 80% of the laws we have because 20% of the population is too stupid to act in their own best interests.

@TheOnlyNeffie Oh, God, why would you do that? They both taste like ass. Isn’t there a more pleasant way to do that kind of damage to your body?

Like any ban on substances that a person makes a choice to take into their body, I think this is bullcrap. that was blunt. ;-)

The problem with this ban is that, as mentioned, there are plenty of cocktails that combine these two “narcotics.” Although FourLoco appears to be a particularly concentrated bit of nasty, the problem is not with the substance – it’s with our education.

As long as we retain certain puritanical attitudes regarding drinking, etc., we’ll keep creating kids who go balls-out with the drinking as soon as they get the legal (or protected) chance. If these kids are made aware of the effects, and how to be safe, we reduce the risks.

I’m in favor of trying the education first, perhaps coupled with an increased regulation of the sale of FourLoco, before we advocate a ban.

Hmm, okay. @iamthemob changed my mind. That sounds better to me.

Personally, I am in favor of less things being banned and more natural selection.

The four active ingredients are caffeine, taurine, Guarana and wormwood, which is an active ingredient in absinthe. Guarana has three times the caffeine in tea or coffee.

@iamthemob I agree with you on most points, but in America, we have a dual education. We’re taught by schools/parents/peers, aka by real people, and we’re taught by advertisements. Advertisements have a frightening potential due to sheer reinforcement. And when it comes to something so new and potent as Four Loko, we pretty much get all of the info from ads. Our parents and teachers are basically unfamiliar with it, I’m sure and peer groups are experiencing this idiocy at the same time. So basically all we know about it up front, when considering buying/consuming it, is what we’re told by the people that profit from us.

I think there’s also a lack of standardization as to how the product is sold, which is directly traceable to the manufacturer. Apparently, it’s sold in convenient stores, sometimes in with beer, other times in with energy drinks. The Texas ABC is asking for a voluntary pulling of beverages because the products’ marketing placement puts in line with energy drinks, and not alcoholic beverages. 12% alcohol is pretty hefty on its own, without the caffeine and wormwood additives.

If people are going to be stupid, they’re going to be stupid. Banning this one drink isn’t going to stop people from mixing caffeine and alcohol.

You couldnt pay me to drink that nasty shit. Sparks is essentially the same thing but with half the alcohol content and less caffeine. It also doesnt taste like shit.

@Facade No, but it would prevent them from mixing that much in one drink.

But.. like.. why not ban Everclear, for example? People who have no clue what they’re doing – and I have heard people advise a 50–50 ratio with a mixer, which is scarier than any FourLoco – could wind up just as sick or dead.

This is why I think banning stuff is ridiculous. I mean, eventually almost everything will be illegal and we’ll all be shut in a rubber room, not allowed belts or shoelaces or anything you could choke on, and eating with our fingers. I hate that the government feels the need to nanny me and everyone else by passing laws making things illegal. It’s gotten ridiculous, really. If people are that boneheaded to not have a lick of common sense, then as I said, they serve the gene pool much better by not being part of it. Just sayin’.

Malt liquor as a category is no stranger to marketing controversy. It underwent a similar scrutiny in the 1980’s when it was marketed solely to African-American urban males, as an aphrosdisiac. The link to alcohol-related crime in African-American markets was directly linked to liquor marketing in those areas, and campaigns were pulled.

Social responsibility with respect to marketing campaigns is taken quite seriously in the liquor industry. This smack-down has nothing to do with personal responsibility of those drinking the beverages, but rather with the product contents and product placement. If you’re of legal drinking age, you’re not the target audience for this product. And that’s the problem.

@papayalily How so? Mixing your own drinks means exactly that. A person can put whatever they want in their drink.

@Facade Not easily in 24 oz.

@Facade If you were to mix whiskey and coke, say ⅔ part respectively in 24oz, you wouldn’t have nearly the same amount of caffeine that you do in a Four Loko.

@Facade, You can consciously choose what you put in your own drink. You’re not buying an energy drink with something else in it. The target audience is Red Bull/energy drink drinkers. They’re leaving out the part of “This 24 ounce can contains 5 beers, caffeine of 3 energy drinks and a splash of absinthe. If you chug it, as it’s easy to do with an energy drink, you will drop a moose in its tracks.”

If you mix 1 can of Red Bull with 2 ounces of Jagermeister, you get a 10 oz drink that’s 6.8% alcohol.

To pack the punch of Four Loko, you’d have to combine 4.3 ounces of Jagermeister into an 8.3 ounces of Red Bull, or basically be drinking doubles.

Cocktail calculator

As a resident of WA state where that stuff is already off the shelves after a recent incident, I have to say that I see it as bullshit. I really hate to admit this, but people have a right to be complete fucking morons. If you want to chug enough FourLoco to have a heart attack and embalm/pickle your corpse in one go, then by all means, go right ahead. BTW, did you notice that many of the kids who have issues with this stuff are underage drinkers anyways?

Personally, I avoided the stuff anyways for three reasons;
1) 24 ounces of 12% is more alcohol than I need to have fun.
2) It tastes like ass
3) Belgian ales taste better and have a low enough alcohol content (typically <9%) that I can actually take 24 ounces of it and not want to immediately take a nap.

@jerv Yeah, but because they’re underage, they’re also less likely to be educated about alcohol. The “education” I got from my peers when I was that age almost got me killed from the assloads of false info. I wasn’t trying to be an irresponsible drinker, I just didn’t know any better.

Yeah, @Jerv, but again, you’re not the target audience for FourLoko; the 16–23 year olds are. The brand would argue that its audience for their marketing is older, but the footprint follows that of energy drinks, which skews younger.

Where does stealing the parent’s stash of hard liquor fit in? I mean, I didn’t know any better when I was 15…

And I know enough young adults (21–30) that are heavily into energy drinks that I find it a good counterbalance to the beers that typically go for the 28+ crowd.

The advertising can target whomever it wants, if the legal age for purchasing alcohol is 21 anyone under that age can’t buy the stuff. Who is buying it for them? Where is the money to purchase coming from? Where are parents of 16 year olds, what do they do when kid comes home flying high and drunk? An under 21 year old consuming alcohol is breaking the law. If I break a law I suffer the consequences for being a criminal, what happens to kids who get caught breaking the law? It is impossible to ban everything that citizens could in such a way that causes harm to themselves. Perhaps matches should be banned to prevent accidental self immolation.

I think it is sad that it has become the job of the government has to protect people from themselves.

@rooeytoo This is the essence of a nanny-state. Welcome to the future.

Advertising for cigarettes was meant to target children by creating characters that they could relate to, even though they could not buy the cigarettes. Unless the companies directly market to the kids, it used to be okay. Internal documents showed that they needed to replace a dwindling customer base (because they were dying) with new consumers, and demonstrated this pre-legal age indirect targeting strategy. There is absolutely no way, considering how much media and advertising can get sent to a kid – even straight to the mobile device in their pocket, which the parents will never see – that parents can control all the influences over their children. The generations growing up now will be influenced more by forces outside the home than inside – or at least significantly more.

Referencing the “nanny state” seems to ignore the fact that companies can advertise in massively different ways than they used to, and that the information we are flooded with makes choice all the more difficult. Of course I think banning is paternalistic, so I think we could head to a nanny state if we’re stupid and not paying attention. But we need to recognize that parents have less and less influence over their kids, and everyone else has more and more.

@iamthemob Referencing the “nanny state” seems to ignore the fact that companies can advertise in massively different ways than they used to, and that the information we are flooded with makes choice all the more difficult. Of course I think banning is paternalistic, so I think we could head to a nanny state if we’re stupid and not paying attention. But we need to recognize that parents have less and less influence over their kids, and everyone else has more and more.

I agree.

Corporations are only interested in profit and will do anything, fair or foul, to gain it. Corporations aren’t interested in our health and well-being.

Hence, energy drinks and so forth.

I think they should be banned for two main reasons.

- One, people don’t really taste the alcohol. Alcohol is a depressant and energy drinks are a stimulant – they kind of counteract each other and before you know it the person who thought they can just keep drinking is on the floor passed out/throwing up.

- I’ve been drunk a lot with my friends, as well as been around my friends a lot while they were drunk. I have to say, I’ve never seen them act the way they do when they’ve been drinking 4-locos when they are drinking anything else. It’s almost like they’ve been on a drug and their behavior is totally irregular.

I dont like them myself, so I guess it’s easy for me to say “Ban the damn things”, but I still think they’re dangerous. Yes – binge drinking in general is in fact dangerous but binge drinking something as toxic as 4-loco is even more dangerous.

I tried a Sparks last night because of this thread. I was curious. It seems they’ve pulled the FourLoko off the shelves already, as there was a whole empty shelf in the cooler where I expected them to be. I admit, I was going to try a FourLoko, but I settled with the Sparks for experimental purposes. I can’t stand the flavoring of Red Bull and most energy drinks and I had a feeling it was going to be disgusting. It exceeded my expectations – it was super disgusting. I managed to drink a bit less than half before giving up. Then, I couldn’t sleep!

It seems like a really stupid, disgusting drink to me. Who the hell drinks it and likes it?? It should be banned for offending the sense of good taste, if nothing else.

@MissAnthrope which one did you get? Sparks plus tastes pretty much like a monster to me. but if you disliked sparks you REALLY wont like 4loco its vile

@Disc2021 I agree people act way different when theyre drunk off 4locos. Always more annoying in my experience.

@MissAnthrope fourloco is intense. It really doesn’t taste good at all. Smells fantastic, though. The watermelon flavor reminds me of jolly ranchers.
However, having said that, I know a lot of people that love them.

The only people I know that liked the taste of Fourloco said it tasted like an instant buzz.

@MissAnthrope Sparks isn’t the same unless you are one of those people who cannot tell the difference between Pepsi and Coke. I find them to be quite different and thus barely comparable, especially since I can drink two Sparks and still be relatively okay rather than completely shitfaced like I would be from one Fourloco.

Oh yeah, I forgot reason #4 that I avoided Fourloco; I have no burning desire to turn my bloodstream into chemical warfare between uppers and downers. Thank you for the reminder, @Disc2021

I tried the Sparks Plus (that was all they had). As an odd side effect, having the can open made my room smell really funky and weird. I will happily stick to beer, wine, and mixed drinks.