With FDA ban, U. will not act on Four Loko

Four Loko’s maker, Phusion Projects, announced that it would stop including caffeine, guarana and taurine in its drinks on Nov. 16, one day before it received a warning letter from the Food and Drug Administration requiring it to do so within 15 days or halt sales of its popular product altogether.

Four Loko, sold in colorful 23.5-ounce cans, contains as much alcohol as four 12-ounce beers and more caffeine than a Red Bull energy drink.

The FDA concluded its yearlong review by calling for an end to sales of Four Loko and similar drinks by three other makers, citing a lack of evidence that the combination of alcohol and caffeine is safe.

Earlier this year, alcoholic energy drinks received national attention following incidents at colleges across the country. At Ramapo College in Mahwah, N.J., in September, six people were hospitalized after drinking Four Loko at a party.

The drink was previously banned in Washington, Michigan, Oklahoma, New York and Massachusetts, and Utah’s state-run alcoholic beverage distribution system never permitted the sale of Four Loko. On Monday, Kansas banned sales of caffeinated alcoholic drinks.

New Jersey has not instituted a statewide measure, but Ramapo, Drew University, Rider University and Fairleigh Dickinson University either banned the drinks or instituted severe penalties for students found with them on campus.

Princeton’s administration did not follow suit and now says that doing so would be unnecessary because of the FDA’s crackdown.

Victoria Jueds, associate dean of undergraduate students, said a University ban is not under consideration because of “the recent warning issued by the Food and Drug Administration, requiring manufacturers to remove caffeine from drinks like Four Loko or to stop selling them entirely.”

In alcoholic energy drinks, the stimulative effects of caffeine mask the depressant effects of alcohol, making a person’s level of intoxication seem less severe, the FDA said.

While this effect is a concern for the public health community, it is an upside for some students.

“[The added caffeine] makes it a lot better, because you’re actually alert and able to ... have fun,” Tess Wood ’11 explained.

As a result, the drink may lose much of its appeal once the decaffeinated version is released.

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“I feel like people aren’t going to buy it anymore,” Wood said. She added that while the drink is not “incredibly common ... a significant amount of people have tried it.”

Despite Four Loko’s use on campus, University Health Services has not encountered issues related to the drink.

“While colleagues at some peer institutions have noted concerning student consumption of these beverages, we have not observed similar use among our students who’ve sought medical assistance at UHS in recent months,” UHS Executive Director John Kolligian said in an e-mail.

However, the University has responded to national events by holding conversations with residential college advisor groups.

“We hope that all students are aware of the high risk associated with this product and other similar drinks,” Cole Crittenden GS ’05, associate dean of undergraduate students, said in an e-mail.

According to Kolligian, drinks such as Four Loko are considered high-risk not only because they mask signs of intoxication, but also because reduced self-awareness caused by caffeine “along with rising blood alcohol levels can further impair reasoning, judgment, psychomotor functions and increase proneness to many high-risk behaviors.”

The Alcohol Coalition Committee, which addresses high-risk drinking on campus, will not concentrate specifically on alcoholic energy drinks such as Four Loko.

“We think that it’s best to focus on high-risk drinking as a whole and not single out any particular substances,” ACC student co-chair Elizabeth Borges ’11 explained. “I think we want to talk to all students on campus about the range of behaviors [that] are classified as high-risk drinking.”