Gossip is the new pornography

Today (November 17, for the sake of posterity), my home state of Washington will implement a ban on caffeinated alcoholic drinks. It was a quick reaction to a party last month involving nine Central Washington University students who became ill after consuming the drink known as “Four Loko” at a college party. A federal ban from the FDA is expected as well sooner rather than later.
 
The previous Wednesday, the Washington (nanny) State Liquor Control Board unanimously approved a 120 day ban on drinks that mix alcohol and caffeine with the intention of making the ban permanent. It was touted and pushed through by the Democratic governor (who I have voted for twice) and the Republican attorney general (who I have not voted for but wants to become the next attorney general). While the ban seems like a knee-jerk reaction to something a bunch of dumb college students that couldn’t hold the liquor they never should have had and an ill-conceived way to make public policy, no one has ever wasted valuable political capital by governing in this manner.

Although Washington is a solidly blue state (mostly), its views on alcohol consumption are quite puritanical. Hard alcohol can only be purchased through state-run liquor stores that have inconsistent hours and product availability and high markups for tax purposes. The W(n)SLCB recently conducted stings of art galleries serving wine during art walks and musicians are banned from drinking on stage during shows with the idea that artists are being paid by the club and they are technically their employee and therefore prohibited from drinking on the job. I was at a show just the previous evening where one of the friendliest singer-songwriters in music was complaining about its unfairness.
 
Less than two weeks ago, two similar ballot measures were defeated (one closely) that would have privatized liquor sales (and allow hard alcohol to be sold in grocery stores). They were fought by the state who argued that alcohol would be too easily accessible to minors, though they were simultaneously arguing that under the current system, Four Loko was too easy for underage people to get their shaky hands on. Most of the money for the campaign, though, came not from well-intentioned people concerned about the proliferation of alcohol in their community but from beer and wine companies who are eager to preserve their monopoly in grocery stores and quick stops.

My own thoughts on regulating alcohol is that it is a legal product for adults and should be treated as such. Penalties for abuse (especially drunk driving) should be severe because adults made the conscious decision to misuse the product. For example, I believe a person convicted of a second DUI offense should forfeit their right to drive a car for the remainder of their life.

In the looming shadow of the forthcoming ban on alcohol/caffeine drinks, I wanted to try Four Loko before it goes away for good.

There was some talk amongst friends about trying Four Loko sometime this weekend, though I didn’t decide that I wanted to participate until the day before. My apprehension was due to not having drank any significant amount of caffeine in almost two years. I still consume chocolate and a barista at Starbucks mistakenly made my hot chocolate as a mocha about two weeks ago (no, I didn’t take more than a sip), but for the most part, I have not consumed caffeine for such an extended time.

My friends and I had decided to meet in West Seattle underneath of a Sparks (another caffeine/alcohol drink available at convenience stores that had previously come under fire for similar reasons as Four Loko). A few people had bought plenty of the stuff, though I was unable to find any in my neighborhood to contribute. It was well enough because we had plenty of the stuff. I said that this might have been the shadiest thing that I’d ever have to potentially explain to my parents, though I didn’t say it explicitly, I meant if it resulted in an arrest.

My own alcohol consumption is actually quite responsible. I say that thinking of the scene in The Runaways where Cherie Curie’s father says one moment “I don’t need to drink, I just like to drink” and then moments later is seen falling out of his car clutching a bottle of vodka, but don’t think that is applicable. I don’t drink every night or ever really crave alcohol and never wake up with hangovers. Almost every situation where I drink is social and I plan on getting home by bus or cab when I have any alcohol.

A can of Four Loko is 23.5 ounces and twelve percent alcohol. It boasts of being “blackout in a can” on the can. That means 5.875 ounces is equal to one Loko. It was said (though I haven’t tried to verify it) that one can of Four Loko has as much alcohol as a six pack of beer. That may be a bit of an exaggeration (and beer can certainly vary in terms of potency and quantity), but if true, it would mean that one can of beer is equal to .833 Loko.

I was handed a cup mostly full of the Orange Blend flavor, about somewhere over three Loko worth. It tasted like a supermarket house brand of orange soda but had a worse aftertaste. On the Seattle Weekly’s food blog, Voracious, the Surly Gourmand described it as being “like the prototypical ‘orange soda’ flavor, but synthetic, like if Minute Maid soda had been developed by Nazi scientists.” We opened five cans (twenty Loko split between six people), all different flavors. The Blue Raspberry flavor looked like carbonated anti-freeze; although I didn’t try it, one doubts it tastes that good.

Of my friends, both old and new, we each drank somewhere between zero and four Lokos. I believe I was the only one to successfully drink an entire can. Some was poured out, all empty cans were recycled.

The taste of Orange Blend was gross, like a homemade, orange-flavored beer made by rank amateurs, but the aftertaste was much, much worse. I felt drunk after an entire can and ill after finishing it; that feeling may have been the result of going without caffeine for so long. When I drink at shows, it takes somewhere around four to five drinks to feel the same buzz, costing somewhere around thirty dollars. The feeling was worse than being drunk, though, and didn’t really wear off until several hours later.

There is no doubt that Four Loko is potent shit and I’m not sure there’s a way that it can be consumed responsibly. For that reason, I could very easily see it being popular with the homeless, though they too have just a few days to stock up (like this guy). I will probably never again drink Four Loko and I resumed my caffeine-abstinence the following day. Yet, I’m still uneasy with the ban.

A friend mentioned, and news reports confirmed, that the infamous Central Washington party that started this had people mixing Four Loco with hard liquor. College and dumb stunts have always gone together (what other institution considers streaking part of a grand tradition?), but that may be the dumbest.

Yet the jury seems to be out on mixing alcohol and caffeine. This ban won’t stop bars from combining Red Bull and vodka or rum and coke. I’m not convinced that the problem lies in combining alcohol and caffeine and not because the manufacturers found a way to fit 12% alcohol into one 23.5 oz. can. In fact, the manufacturers, Phusion Projects, have said that they will remove caffeine and guarine from the product, but nothing of reducing the alcohol quantity. I don’t know if caffeine makes the effects of alcohol worse (again, this was the first time in over two years I drank caffeine) but the grandstanding from politicians like Charles Schumer makes me think this was more of a rush to judgment while blaming one source (caffeine) when another (high volume of alcohol) is largely ignored. The mania surrounding it has made people who normally wouldn’t touch the stuff (non-dumbasses and/or douche bags) curious to try it.

When the new version of Four Loko hits the quick stop shelves again, just sans caffeine and guarine, one can will likely still carry the same potency as it did before. If the taste doesn’t deter you (and it really, really should) from drinking the stuff, the absence of caffeine won’t either. Before the invention of Four Loko and other similar drinks, college students drank beer from a funnel.

College campuses will still be hotbeds of binge drinking, as anyone who has seen Animal House or (worse) actually been to college can attest. But hey, whatever. I won’t ever drink the stuff again, Chuck Schumer gets to be on TV again and douche bags get bummed out. Maybe this is a win-win for everyone.