Finally, The Black Scourge Of Four Loko Is Off The Nation’s Store Shelves
Our long national nightmare is over.
An alcopop that’s built up a cult following is being removed from US stores in its current form today on the orders of the Food and Drug Administration.
The passing of the popular drink has been mourned with almost religious fervour by its fans. But it will now disappear in its current formulation
Four Loko has as much caffeine as a large coffee and is about three times as alcoholic – at 12% – as average-strength beer.There were reports that students were becoming dangerously drunk on the product. The alcohol–caffeine mix is, says the BBC, “a combination those who drink it say tastes great and makes you feel good. But others describe it as a ‘blackout in a can’, and blame it for landing a number of students in hospital.”
If you’ve not heard of Four Loko don’t be worried. The drink was little more than a campus novelty before the federal government, citing a few anecdotal instances where college students drank it to excess, decided to institute an arbitrary ban on the drink as it is currently formulated (apparently a formulation without caffeine will still be available after today).
And when I say arbitrary, I mean arbitrary. There were no studies done. There was little effort to include the public process. The FDA just up and banned the drink for our own good. Because as the Obama administration has argued in court, Americans “do not have a fundamental right to obtain any food they wish.”
What’s funny is that college students are actually holding vigils to say goodbye to Four Loko, proving once again that the surest way to make something popular with America’s youth is to have the government institute a ban on it.
