Cocaine Energy Drink: It's not just the name that's in bad taste

Who ever thought we'd see the day when kids could go into stores and buy "cocaine" but not spinach?

Las Vegas-based Redux Beverages has created a new energy drink called -- get this -- Cocaine.  The beverage, which according to the manufacturer is 350% stronger than Red Bull, is being marketed to young adults as the "the legal alternative".  Redux officials claim consumers will experience both a psychological and physical high, and the inventor of the drink, Jamey Kirby, told the New York Post, "I can think of no other product except real cocaine that could have that effect on the public."  Kirby believes the name of the beverage will cause consumers to experience a psychological energy buzz prior to the physical one, which Redux says lasts five hours beginning with a high that hits within five minutes followed by a caffeine boost 15 minutes later.

But studies of caffeine consumption show that at high doses a caffeine "high" can turn quickly from wakefulness, alertness and feelings of energy to "anxiety, tension, insomnia, and even nausea and an upset stomach," according to Roland Griffiths, a professor in the departments of psychiatry and neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Younger consumers are likely to be more vulnerable, since smaller doses of caffeine are needed to produce these effects in people with lower body weight.  Routine consumption may pose chronic health risks as well. Research linking increased heart risk with high coffee intake has been mixed. Such high doses can harm arteries, speed bone loss, and in pregnant women it might also reduce birth weight and raise the risk of miscarriage. That would make super-caffeinated drinks like Cocaine a poor choice for many consumers -- especially children and teens, women who are pregnant or may become pregnant and postmenopausal women who are vulnerable to osteoporosis.

Our recent tests suggest that passing up this drink might not be too difficult. Consumer Reports had ten people informally taste the Cocaine Energy Drink.  It was a blind test for a few of the participants who didn’t know what the drink was before they tasted it.  Overall, the testers found the controversial fizzy, neon pink beverage to be very sweet, similar to artificially flavored fruit punch, and also bitter.  Several of the participants thought it tasted like cough syrup.  Most notably, the drink had a big spice heat sensation and burned the back of the throat.  Perhaps this is the reason for the manufacturer’s claim that the drink tastes like a "carbonated atomic fireball!"

Although Redux claims it doesn’t advocate drug or alcohol use, naming its drink Cocaine, making marketing assertions such as "Cocaine -- Instant Rush.  NO Crash!", putting a throat-numbing ingredient in its beverage in order to add an oral sensation much like cocaine does, and listing possible alcoholic concoctions on its Web site makes that claim hard to believe.  In a recent statement, Joseph A. Califano, Jr., Chairman and President of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University and former U.S. Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, has called Cocaine Energy Drink a "disgusting product", and states "putting a product on the market that glamorizes an illegal and addictive drug like cocaine is irresponsible and reprehensible".  Consumer Reports agrees, and concurs with Califano's hope that retailers, businesses, bars, and coffee shops will refuse to sell the new drinks.