And you thought that alcoholic caffeine drinks were ok?
Brewers Anheuser-Busch and Miller said at a conference in Florida in February that several U.S. state Attorneys General have demanded information on how they market and sell caffeinated alcoholic drinks.
According to news agency reports, both brewers have received subpoenas. The fact that state Attorney Generals have decided to look into the matter more deeply has revived a controversy over caffeine-laced drinks that persuaded Anheuser-Busch in May last year to pull its Spykes drinks from the market.
Advocacy groups and others had accused the brewer of targeting underage drinkers with brightly coloured packaging and hip marketing for its alcoholic malt beverage.
Anheuser-Busch, which controls nearly half the U.S. beer market, admitted that the Attorneys General of New York, Maine, Maryland, Arizona and Iowa have subpoenaed it for information about the sale and marketing of its Tilt and Bud Extra products, which are malt beverages with caffeine.
Miller, which is part of SABMiller, also disclosed it received investigative demands from the Attorneys General of New York, Maine, Iowa and Illinois for information about its Sparks line of drinks, which contain alcohol and additives like taurine and guarana that are also often found in energy drinks.
Energy drinks, with names like Amp, Rush, Full Throttle, Red Bull and Monster, are non-alcoholic caffeine drinks typically marketed to young people.
Nevertheless, they are banned in some countries such as Denmark, France, Norway and Argentina.
In Australia, too, writes John Harvey from Adelaide, energy drinks have come under fire recently. The mixing of caffeine-based energy drinks with alcohol in clubs and bars verges on “legalized drink spiking” in the opinion of the Australian Medical Association.
Cocktails such as Jager Bomb, Speedball and Thug Passion, typically mixtures of spirits and energy drinks such as Red Bull & Lucozade, are popular with young drinkers but are now considered by many to be a menace as the stimulants in the energy drinks can mask the effects of alcohol.
