Four Loko has everything young people enjoy most: caffeine, malt liquor, exotic flavors, a suspiciously low price tag, zany Spanish words spelled incorrectly and the visual irony of a can that features neon colors as camouflage. Conversely, these elements especially the first four are exactly what concerned parents and policymakers enjoy least. After a string of Loko-related hospitalizations, several college administrations and municipalities have banned or are considering banning the popular drink. The drink is illegal in New Hampshire, and Vermont only sells the 6 percent version instead of the full 12.5 percent. What all of these measures erroneously assume, however, is that banning it will curb dangerous drinking.
Critics portray Four Loko as a deceptively nefarious drug whose stimulants mask alcohol's effects giving drinkers the impression that they're more sober than they actually are. But if you've never responsibly enjoyed a Four Loko, let me make something clear: Four Loko's effects are as subtle as the sophomore girls in Novack who have received a bid to their first choice sorority. Within minutes, your heartbeat doubles, cold sweat oozes from pores you didn't know existed and a general feeling of nausea, internal organ failure and euphoria overtakes you.
Experts overlook the characteristics of the demographic that enjoys this product. This is not a drink you sip casually. This demographic encompasses the drunkest boys and girls at the party, and if it isn't Four Loko they're binge drinking, it will be Red Bull and vodkas in between pong games. A recent NPR story about Penn State highlighted a group of freshman girls who take six shots in six minutes before heading to bars; it is people such as this who partake of Loko. Blaming the drink is easy. What is harder for parents and policymakers to admit is that their children are intentionally drinking at dangerous levels, instead of being tricked into blacking out by a devious mix of caffeine, taurine, guarana and alcohol, the four ingredients that give the drink its name. Four Loko does not flip a switch that immediately transforms a person into a stumbling, vomiting, screaming train wreck, as shown by the majority of Loko consumers who drink it without blacking out or requiring hospitalization.
Media articles, however, use fear-mongering labels such as "liquid cocaine" and "Blackout in a Can" to describe the drink. A recent news story focusing exclusively on Four Loko's danger mentioned how gang members forced their victims to drink Four Lokos and then sodomized and beat them, conceptually equating the product with torture. And in the most recent Loko outcry, the media blames the drink for nine women's hospitalizations at Central Washington University. First, while the women's BAC levels were certainly dangerous (varying from .12 to .35), they are not unusual for college campuses. Secondly, the police report mentions the presence of other potentially dangerous drugs: rum, vodka, beer, marijuana and roofies. The regularity and severity of our binge drinking and drug culture are alarming, but Four Loko didn't cause it.
A Four Loko is about the equivalent of seven Keystones, a shot of espresso and a Red Bull. Yes, combining all of those ingredients in one beverage makes for a potent drink, but it's not a combination that many students haven't already figured out and tried on their own. At Novack, I've served a student five shots of espresso in one transaction a daily routine that he supplements with energy drinks. If he plays two games of pong, he may have been better off casually sipping a cranberry lemonade Four Loko. Five Hour Energies, grande lattes, Full Throttles college students know that alcohol is a depressant, and one Topside run can provide the solution.
Besides caffeine, malt liquor and wacky neon colors, there's something else young people like: they can't have it. Banning the drink, especially solely on college campuses, may only increase its growing popularity. Moreover, the Four Loko website features a search engine that will find the closest provider to your area code. A mere 83.6 miles from Dartmouth College sits Granville, New York a small town that hosts three Four Loko vendors within as many miles. Binge drinking is clearly a problem, but before this prohibition craziness gets out of hand, policymakers and concerned parents should address why their sons and daughters drink to the point of hospitalization. I'm willing to bet it isn't because a neon red and green can tricked them.
