Four Loko is an alcoholic malt beverage that is essentially an energy drink with a whole lot of alcohol. The flavors, such as fruit punch, grape and watermelon — along with the cheap price of the 23.5 ounce can — has made Four Loko a hit with college students. However, recent headlines suggest that officials are thinking about banning the drink. People have called it a “blackout in a can” due to its 12 percent alcohol content. To put this into perspective, one can of Four Loko is the equivalent of drinking about five beers. Due to its appeal to younger people, government officials are beginning to take steps to ban the drink.
I am calling their bluff.
Believe me, I am quite aware of the effects that Four Loko may have on an individual. It is safe to say that if Four Loko and I were dueling, the score would be Me: 0, Four Loko: 2. Hell, if you have seen me in the past two weeks, you may have even seen the battle wounds from my epic scuffles with Four Loko.
But all kidding aside, let’s talk about the main issues with this drink. I am not saying I am against banning the drink, I just think more studies need to be done first. And being that cases involving this drink have been very scattered so far, I don’t believe there should be an uproar just yet, but rather an actual detailed investigation.
Ramapo College of New Jersey has banned the drink after several students were taken to the hospital for alcohol poisoning. Four Loko has also been blamed for concentrated blackouts of groups of people in Washington and Florida. My question is this: Doesn’t all alcohol do this? I’m fairly certain God didn’t just shoot down a can of Four Loko that had grave side effects for those brave enough to try it. The main issue with this is people consuming more alcohol than they can handle, and suffering the consequences. But that happens with any type of alcohol.
Aside from the blackout effect officials say this drink has, they are also worried about it being too available to underage kids. Are you kidding me? With or without Four Loko, you will still have underage drinking. The sole hope of stomping out underage people from drinking isn’t dependent on banning Four Loko. I mean, College Park is home to Thirsty Turtle, an establishment where, in the past, a piece of paper with crayon markings could pass as sufficient identification.
The truth is that fighting underage drinking is a battle that will be lost time after time. Generation after generation has been exposed to alcohol well before age 21. Most of the officials trying to ban the drink probably had a few brewskis before they were legally allowed to. Your only shot of stomping out underage drinking is completely banning alcohol all together. However, if I recall my history correctly, prohibition in the 1920s and early 1930s didn’t work out too well.
So the question remains: Keep Four Loko, or ban it all together? To me, it doesn’t really matter. College students will still drink alcohol. College students will still be sent to the hospital with alcohol poisoning out of their own stupidity. Four Loko didn’t start these problems, and the banning of it certainly won’t end them. If it stays, people will keep drinking it. If it goes, then people will wait until the next drink like it comes out.
Until then, cheers Terrapins, and bottoms up.
Josh Birch is a junior communication and history major. He can be reached at birch at umdbk dot com.
