The manufacturers of Four Loko stated on Tuesday that they will remove caffeine from their products just as the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) was about to put a ban on the drink. This statement was made right before the FDA was going to make their own rule. The FDA insists that mixing alcohol and caffeine is unsafe and needs to be stopped. Senator Chuck Schumer has been pushing the Obama administration to bad beverages of this kind. The statement made by the company’s three co-founders said they were removing caffeine from the drinks because they were unsuccessful in dealing with all the political pressure from both state and federal levels. The three co-founders Chris Hunter, Jeff Wright and Jaisen Freeman all still say that they believe that mixing caffeine and alcohol is safe. Their statement however did not mention the recent incidents in which college students have been hospitalized after drinking the beverage. As a result of this four states, Washington, Michigan, Utah and Oklahoma have banned the beverages and many other states are considering the action. Four Loko comes in many different flavors including fruit punch and blue raspberry. A 23.5 ounce can costs $2.50 and has a 12 percent alcohol content equaling about 4 beers. Although there is very little medical knowledge proving how dangerous this drink is, public health advocates say the drinks can make people get really pumped up and not feel drunk and then next thing they know they will be dangling all over the place. The FDA claims that mixing caffeine and alcohol is lethal and should be outlawed.
There is a lot of relevance to our society with this article. This drink can be very harmful to us high school students as well as its current hit at colleges. It can ruin people lives and kill them. Only imagine if what you decided to drink on the weekend ruined your life for ever… or ended it. This is a good article that informs people of the unsafe possibilities at hand.
There were many strengths and weaknesses in this article. One, it was good at getting the point across and scaring people away from drinking these lethal beverages. The article had good reasoning to back up its point of view. However, one of its weaknesses is that it acknowledges that there is very little medical evidence proving that this drink is harmful. Many people that like Four Loko feel that you can get this drunk and sick from any alcoholic beverage and people are just using Four Loko as a scapegoat. Overall I felt that this was a good article that I learned a lot from.
Four Loko Drops Caffeine From Alcoholic Drink - FoxNews.com." FoxNews.com - Breaking News | Latest News | Current News. Web. 22 Nov. 2010.
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5 comments:
I thought this review was clear, informative, and and well written. By listing several basic facts of the beverage Four Loco, including its size, alcohol content, and price, readers have a general idea of how accessible the drink is to adults and teens alike. Additionally, the article lists examples of how Four Loco is dangerous, alluding to several instances where young adults have harmed themselves or others while being intoxicated from drinking Four Loco. The review is shows clear approval for the recent removal of caffeine from the Four Loco beverages, and lists hard evidence to support its stance. Finally, the article being well written makes all of the material easy to understand.
To improve this article I may have included more scientific explanations as to why mixing caffeine and alcohol is so harmful to drinkers. Is it because alcohol is a depressant and caffeine is a stimulant? It also would have been nice to have had some official medical effects of the beverage. Does it cause heart palpation? Does it damage brain function? What kinds of effects does it have on consumers throughout their lives?
Overall, I was surprised to find that the creators of Four Loco decided to remove the caffeine from their beverages before being legally forced to by the FDA. I'm curious as to how they will continue to market their product, and what they will do to prevent underage drinkers from consuming the product as it has been sold to many minors due to its packaging. Considering their late action, it also makes me wonder if they ever cared who was consuming their products in the first place.
Austin wrote a nice detailed article review. He chose a very interesting article to write about because so many have wanted to know the truth about how bad of a drink four loco is. He explains that caffeine will be removed from the products. I like how he gave background information about what other states have banned four loco. I thought it was very interesting how “the drinks can make people get really pumped up and not feel drunk and then next thing they know they will be dangling all over the place.”
To improve the article review, it would have been interesting to learn about specific instances where four loco has damaged people’s bodies. He mentioned that college students were hospitalized, but more specifically. Also, I would’ve liked to know what is so awful about mixing caffeine and alcohol.
I was surprised at how long it has taken to actually remove the caffine. It has been legal and causing damage for quite a while now. So why have only a few states banned it?
I felt that Austin’s article was very well-written. I liked how Austin used statistics to show how much a four loko equals in beer and how cheap it is to get that much caffeine in your body. I also liked how Austin related this article to our society and the growing issue in adolescents in all areas.
I didn’t like that Austin didn’t talk about the effects of four lokos enough because I didn’t get a real idea of how bad these are for a person to intake. I also felt that he could have explained why the FDA feels that caffeine and alcohol mixed is so lethal because that would have really helped his explanation.
I found it very interesting that one can of four loko equals four beers.
I thought Austin did a very good job at choosing this article. I thought the review was well done because it pertained especially to us high school students, especially the ones who are about to go off to college and maybe witness the effects of this drink first hand. I also liked how he gave the political aspect of this issue, including the ideas floated around by the FDA and Senator Schumer. Finally I really liked his enthusiasm in this review, making it seem friendly instead of only informative, I liked the sense of a casual review. The confusion I encountered in Austin’s writing was when he used the term dangling because I’m not really sure how that pertains to young boys and girls getting too drunk. Perhaps tipsy would have been a better word but I guess I’m an outsider to all of this. I also would have liked to learn more about the effects of caffeine and alcohol mixed together. All in all I truly enjoyed Austin’s review because it opened my eyes to all of the harmful things that can be legally bought and sold without being passed by the FDA.
Positives: The review provides a basic information about the Four Loko product (price, alc. content, size) which gives the reader an idea of what the FDA deems illegal. Information about the co-founders of Four Loko, the FDA, and specific college-Loko tragedies was also very helpful to have as it paralleled the multiple points of view on the subject. Also brought up were some interesting concepts, such as Four Loko being treated as a scapegoat for underage drinking.
Negative: The review could have had a little more information, like why caffeine and alcohol are a lethal mix (upper and downer). Otherwise good review.
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