Booze boost
Police brace for threat from latest energy drinks with alcohol
If you see teenagers walking down the street with colorful cans in hand, chances are good that they’re consuming energy drinks with high concentrations of caffeine and other stimulants.
But some drink makers are adding another ingredient that is causing concern. That ingredient is alcohol.
Alcoholic energy drinks, some of which pack as much punch as a can of beer, are exacerbating the problem of underage drinking.
“Why should you care? Because kids are drinking this and get into cars and drive and hit your kids and injure them for life,” said Celeste Young of the North Inland Community Prevention Program, a county-funded nonprofit organization that works to combat teen drug and alcohol problems.
Energy drinks are a lucrative market. In 2006, Americans spent more than $3.2 billion on them, according to Mintel International Group, a Chicago-based market research firm. Even after adjusting for inflation, it represents a 516 percent increase in sales since 2001.
The Mintel study shows that those between the ages of 12 and 17 are the second largest group of consumers, accounting for 31 percent of sales.
Young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 account for 34 percent of the market.
John Lopez, an NICPP spokesman, said alcoholic versions of energy drinks are piggybacking on that success, packaging and marketing their beverage in a similar manner. He said alcoholic energy drinks use the same nontraditional forms of Internet advertising, event sponsorship and messaging on Web sites such as MySpace and Facebook.
Slogans such as “You Can Sleep When You’re 30” for Bud Extra and “Get Your 3rd, 4th and 5th Wind” for Tilt, both alcoholic energy drinks produced by Anheuser-Busch, specifically target youths, he said.
“They’re not on billboards or TV,” Lopez said. “They’re not going to do a multimillion ad at the Super Bowl.”
The difference between alcoholic and nonalcoholic energy drinks is difficult to detect from the packaging, especially with brands such as Monster, which offers both types of drinks. Lopez said the primary difference is that nonalcoholic energy drinks have nutritional content labels, while alcoholic ones don’t.
Because of the similarities, Escondido police conducted training for 60 patrol officers in January, showing them cans of alcoholic and nonalcoholic energy drinks, police Lt. Craig Carter said.
“We did the training so we can readily identify in the field whether kids are drinking alcoholic energy drinks,” Carter said. “Unless you’re looking really close, you really can miss it.”
He said detectives and officers of the vice squad also were briefed on energy drinks.
The size of the problem locally is difficult to ascertain. Ed Nelson is superintendent of Escondido Union High School District, which has more than 8,500 students. Energy drinks are allowed, although not sold, on school campuses.
Nelson said the district is unaware of any problems with alcoholic varieties and has not been approached by organizations or parents complaining about them.
“Nothing has been shown to me that it exists on our campuses,” Nelson said. “We haven’t seen anything that suggests it is a problem. All of our staff stay vigilant and watch. But no, they haven’t been trained to tell the difference.”
Carter said that alcoholic energy drinks are not a rampant concern yet but that police would incorporate them into future sting operations.
“Youths are getting to it,” Carter said. “Some are walking around the streets and parks with the cans. We decided to get ahead of the curve.”
Carter said that some unknowing parents may be buying the alcoholic products for children because of the similar packaging. Adults furnishing alcohol to minors can be fined up to $1,000 and serve almost a year in prison if convicted.
“The fact that they’ll say they didn’t know will likely be their defense, but that doesn’t mean it’ll hold up in court,” Carter said.
A 2007 study by the Marin Institute, an alcohol industry watchdog group, found that alcoholic energy drinks are about 50 cents per can less expensive than regular energy drinks.
“Parents will choose the cheaper ones, not knowing anything about it other than they’re a colorful can,” Lopez said.
Studies about the physiological effects of alcoholic energy drinks are few and far between, Young said, but the results are not comforting. A study conducted by Dr. Mary Claire O’Brien of the Wake University School of Medicine in North Carolina found that students who drank caffeinated alcohol drank twice as much as those who consumed noncaffeinated alcoholic drinks.
“They’re drinking them and not realizing that they’re getting drunk,” Young said. “What you have is a wide awake drunk.”
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