Washington state will ban the sale of Four Loko and other alcoholic energy drinks containing caffeine for 120 days beginning Thursday, Nov. 18. The emergency ban, which the state Liquor Control Board seeks to permanently institute, was announced on Wednesday, Nov. 10, following bans in Michigan, Utah and Oklahoma within the past week.
These bans were sparked in part by an incident at Central Washington University in early October where multiple students lost consciousness and were rushed to the hospital after consuming numerous Four Lokos in combination with other alcoholic beverages. CWU’s Department of Physical Education, School and Public Health said Four Loko contains as much alcohol as a six pack of beer and as much caffeine as five cups of coffee.
Test results from the students hospitalized at CWU showed no traces of any date rape drug, but all nine had blood alcohol levels ranging from .12 to .35. Authorities say this upper level is equivalent to being under surgical anesthesia, and four times the legal limit for adults.
Four Loko retains its popularity in part because it is inexpensive, which suggests that students become intoxicated for less money.
“It’s very cheap. It’s $2.59 [per can], and supposedly it’s like five beers,” said one student, “Joe”, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
While Four Loko is fairly popular at Whitman, neither Health Center Director Claudia Ness nor Assistant Dean of Students Clare Carson could name a specific Whitman incident related to Four Loko or similar drinks. Both, however, caution that drinks that combine both alcohol and caffeine share risks beyond those of other alcoholic beverages.
“When you’re going to mix anything with alcohol, that can lead into alcohol poisoning. When you put the stress of caffeination on top of that, it’s going to doubly stress the cardiovascular system,” said Ness.
Beyond the implicit health risks, Ness and Carson said that the caffeine in Four Loko and similar drinks can mask the effects of intoxication, which can lead to increased drinking, an increased risk of alcohol poisoning and an increased chance of doing something dangerous, like driving drunk.
“If you drink a whole drink, you’re consuming a lot of alcohol, which is a depressant, and you’re also getting a stimulant. Generally, some who people drink alcohol get signals that say when they’ve gotten too depressed with the alcohol. Well, this counteracts those signals, so somebody could be highly intoxicated by not getting those signals,” said Carson.
For students who drink Four Loko, the fact that the caffeine masks the alcohol is part of the appeal.
“It’s really not all that different. There is a big [kind] of an buzz, which can be really helpful in our stressful environment, if say, you don’t want to fall asleep after drinking,” said Joe.
Joe adds that Four Loko has some safety benefits–it’s one large can, which means that people are not sharing cups or infecting each other.
However, Carson also says that she is not sure that banning the drink is the answer.
“Personally, I think that prohibition-type things create an underground network of things that become highly desirable,” said Carson.
She believes it would be better to allow people to come to the conclusion that drinking Four Loko and similar drinks is a bad idea on their own.
Carson also said that she has heard concerns about students mixing alcohol with caffeine on their own, for instance, Coke and rum. The upcoming state ban does not affect people’s ability to personally mix alcoholic and caffeinated beverages.
“If we banned it, or prohibited it, I don’t think that we would get that result in the terms of personal accountability,” Carson said, prior to the ban being announced. “What we’d like is for students to be able to say, ‘That’s bad stuff. That’s not what I want.'”
