Energy Drinks: The New Gateway Drug? Not My Red Bull!!!

My perspective as a mother/parent sees how these energy drinks are marketed and targeted at the younger set. I would say to the teens to twenty-somethings, especially. However, even my ten year old daughter is enthralled by Monster Energy drinks and Mountain Dew Voltage. I don't know if its because of the color of the drinks that is so appealing to her; especially the blue color of the Dew or the green color of the Monster. The designs on the cans and labels are pretty cool if you've ever really looked at them. Of course she doesn't get to have those kinds of drinks but her eyes are sure drawn to them when she's choosing another drink in the coolers when we're at the convenience stores. There's a huge, huge selection of soft drinks and to kids maybe it is like a "drug" of sorts. They know it gives you a "jolt" or "kick" of energy or "some kind of fun feeling" and probaby want to try some to find out what it feels like. Kind of like when kids spin around and around because they like that feeling, they think it's fun (think playground swings/toys). Now, as far as adults go I would say no, these drinks aren't a gateway drug and most of us have tried, used alcohol long before energy drinks even came on the market.

I can see how young kids would be curious about these drinks, though especially by seeing how they are marketed and advertised; they sort of promise all sorts of fun times if you consume them. Thanks for the thread, OP. S & F

Well my friends sure partake like crack heads, unable to start the day without, drinking several throughout the day, and whining if they have none. I have heard the drinks called christian crack(no offense). I see kids all the time with these things, and in the bars I see redbull as much as any other drink around. Man there sure is a lot of money in this business!
What gets me is the main ingediant, which doesn't settle well enough with me to enjoy one without tummy ache, is Taurine, which to my understanding is synthesized(?) bull bile...yummy huh?!

Peace,
spec

This is the old case of the "We have nothing of any importance or credibility to add to the scientific world so we shall make some BS up and hope we get some attention" disease. You will see it everywhere if you look!

reply to post by jude11


Well this is crazy....but not surprising from our new Nanny-State New World Disorder groups that spring up everywhere.

I wish i had come up with the idea for energy drinks before all the others...I mean there are literally hundreds of different brands out there some now putting alcohol in the mix as well...my guess is these guys are angry they too didn't come up withe idea first so they use scare tatics.

No one complains about alcohol anymore...I guess the lobyist money is just too good to pass up. No one mentions the whipped cream with alcohol being a gateway drug...I mean you could kill a couple of birds withe one stone...Huff a little whatever it is that gets people high...toast the fact that you are high with the high alcohol content and consume the massive calories from the cream and the obilgatory ice cream and eventually look forward too your first dose of smack.

Now I must return to My Redbull...my five hour is wearing off...and the Turkey Perky Jerky is just perfect for my midday snack. And remeber hands off my Red Bull...my defense is going to be the Red Bull made me DO IT !

Energy drinks give you that buzz because they're full of a lot of caffeine.

What else has caffeine? Tea, regular sodas, chocolate. And, of course, the all important coffee. Heck, some headache medicines have caffeine in them.

To me, this is like saying that Pixie Sticks are a gateway drug to coc aine use. It's completely and utterly mind-blowingly stupid.

reply to post by jude11


Man I just got done drinking a red bull and it wasn't enough!! Who has some coc aine on here????

The gateway, it's such a crap. You could also say: Birth is a gateway to addictives!

Although, i do feel that energy drinks are something very very stupid. If people took care of theirselves, there would be no subsciption to such drinks.

And i feel nauseus when i see a teenager or younger drinking energy drinks. I'm 100% certain that it doens't do good for young people.

IMHO, as long as cannabis is restricted, they should restrict energy drinks too.

[one could say the above sentence is trolling with big hooked Rapala Magnum!]

definately a direct attack,by mass media and big pharma, on anonymous and lulzsec etc....how would they function without rockstar,twinkies and gummy worms......

I personally can vouch the credibility of this post on Monster beverages...

I faithfully drank Monster coffee drinks in the morning before work, and Monster Kaos during my lunches. After awhile, if I skipped one, I'd get shaky and weak to the point to where I'd have to sit down - similar to a hyperglycemia attack. I stopped using them, switching my canned coffee to Starbucks - and switching out the noon time Monster to Arizona Black and White iced tea.

The attacks stopped, even if I skipped one of my ritual drinks or switched it out with a Gatoraid.

reply to post by queenofsheba

I can see how young kids would be curious about these drinks, though especially by seeing how they are marketed and advertised; they sort of promise all sorts of fun times if you consume them.

I'm sure you are right the concern is over kids getting bad habits. I think some teens associate the fun times they have at those marathon dance raves with these energy drinks. How did you convince your daughter to avoid them?

There is no free ride, if you consume over 200 mg of caffeine a day it can get habit forming fast. Some people get in such a vicious cycle they develop migraines, others abnormal heart rhythm.

reply to post by jude11


Well I mean, energy drinks did lead me to actual drinking more than a few times. But unless you're an idiot you'll never become black out drunk, nor use drugs.

reply to post by nyk537


The problem is the people who exceed the recommended dose they suggest on the can. I have seen people consume 2 times as much as recommended. Man do they ever shake. As always there is always some idiot to ruin it for everyone elts.

reply to post by Gorman91

But unless you're an idiot you'll never become black out drunk, nor use drugs.

True, but one could get ill, temporarily at least:

The report points out that energy drinks constitute the fastest growing U.S. beverage market, with sales expected to touch $9 billion in 2011. About a third of teens and young adults consume these regularly.$$

The Associated Press also reports that 677 cases of energy drink overdoses and side effects were noted from October through December 2010, after the American Association of Poison Control Centers adopted codes to track these; so far, 331 have been reported in 2011, most of which involve children and teens.

www.ibtimes.com...

Martin says last week, 2 Doherty High students were rushed to the emergency room, after they drank just one can of Spike Shooter. Martin says at least 5 others complained of heart palpitations, nausea, vomiting and fatigue, after ingesting the energy drink.

"Of course at first, they had a huge burst of energy, but then when they came down, they almost couldn't function," said Martin. She noted one girl had to be taken from her classroom in a wheelchair, because she could barely walk.

Tim Patterson is CEO of Spike LLC, the company that manufactures Spike Shooter, and emphasizes the drink is not intended for kids. Patterson says the company markets Spike Shooter to the 18-34 age group, and says the drink should not harm consumers if they follow directions. He also suggests drinking just half the can at first, to test tolerance.

www.kktv.com...

Peace,
spec

reply to post by speculativeoptimist


Yes that sounds about right. I was hooked on them during the challenges of college. I'd go literally 3 days on average none stop work. One very rare time, I went 5 days without sleep to get something done.

What would you expect in the conditions we go through in college, where you literally need 5-10 more hours a day to breach the A barrier. You can only get that out of sleep time, which gets rendered irrelevant thanks to energy drinks.

Me and others like me had a schedule like this. Mondays you manage pretty well, Tuesday is coffee day, Wednesday is energy drink day, Thursday you skip breakfast with energy drink, lunch with coffee, and dinner with something crappy. Friday you finish off high on caffeine ready to break. You either party till you collapse, ro just plain go home and go comatose till noon Saturday. In either case you wake up, eat some food, talk with friends, do something, then it's time to sleep again. Sunday you get your weekend work done, church or something, dinner, then sleep. Monday, repeat.

Every summer when I got back home, it was like everything died. Took a month just to get through the migraines and recover to a normal schedule, and then an additional month to gain back your humanity. Then you spent the last month of break getting ready for the big return.

It was hell. You pretty much guarantee death by 60.

reply to post by Gorman91

Oh man, I can certainly relate to the college days. I was working part time too and spent a lot of time yawning throughout the day. Now Adderall(love these names with wordplay) is the new lift amongst students. My crutch was coffee and ginseng. You are right, there is not enough energy it seems to do it all and have a life.
Welcome to the machine.....

spec

reply to post by speculativeoptimist


Oh boy, the machine hasn't seen anything yet.

Give it a few years.

Originally posted by theshepherd92
Kind of off-topic but IMHO I think that marijuana is only a gateway drug because it is classified with all those harder drugs. Kids try marijuana, see that it isn't as bad as the world made it seem, and might go on to think "Hey, if they we're wrong about marijuana, maybe they were wrong about coc aine.

The reality is every one of those drugs gives you the opposite effect of marijuana. Marijuana relaxes you, calms you. Cocaine, Meth, MDMA all dramatically increase your heart-rate and makes it hard to even sit still. The fact is the highs are so completely different, the ONLY thing connecting the drugs together is the laws that prohibit them.

Study up, sheepherd...the only thing that leads to the use drugs of ANY kind is the person themselves and how much intelligence and self control they have.

Doctors, the medical industry and legal drug dealers (Pharmaceutical Salesmen) are the top of the heap of turning people into druggies...not some kind of energy drink...or even marijuana.

Everything in life we have has the ability to be abused...depends on what kind of person is making what kind of choices....

I am a Dietitian (RD) and I have done research on Energy Drinks. These are my thoughts:

First off a little background on how energy drinks are categorized: Energy drinks are NOT regulated in the same way that colas or soft drinks are regulated by the FDA. Energy Drinks are considered ergogenic aids and fall under the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) of 1994.

By law (DSHEA), the manufacturer is responsible for ensuring that its dietary supplement products are safe before they are marketed. Unlike drug products that must be proven safe and effective for their intended use before marketing, there are no provisions in the law for FDA to "approve" dietary supplements for safety or effectiveness before they reach the consumer. Under DSHEA, once the product is marketed, FDA has the responsibility for showing that a dietary supplement is "unsafe," before it can take action to restrict the product's use or removal from the marketplace.

There is no provision under any law or regulation that FDA enforces that requires a firm to disclose to FDA or consumers the information they have about the safety or purported benefits of their dietary supplement products. Likewise, there is no prohibition against them making this information available either to FDA or to their customers. It is up to each firm to set its own policy on disclosure of such information.

In that FDA has limited resources to analyze the composition of food products, including dietary supplements, it focuses these resources first on public health emergencies and products that may have caused injury or illness. Enforcement priorities then go to products thought to be unsafe or fraudulent or in violation of the law. The remaining funds are used for routine monitoring of products pulled from store shelves or collected during inspections of manufacturing firms. The agency does not analyze dietary supplements before they are sold to consumers. The manufacturer is responsible for ensuring that the "Supplement Facts" label and ingredient list are accurate, that the dietary ingredients are safe, and that the content matches the amount declared on the label. FDA does not have resources to analyze dietary supplements sent to the agency by consumers who want to know their content.

So what does this mean to you as a drinker of energy drinks? No one is checking to see what exactly it is you are consuming! My advice is “Buyer Beware” and do your own research. I see people on here every day worried about the amount of fluoride they consume but have no qualms about drinking something so under regulated.

To address the issue of the drinks being addictive –yes they are to the extent that caffeine is addictive. I do not believe that they are a gate-way drug. If they really want to worry about addictive foods then they need to regulate potatoes and starches. I once had a client who came to me for dietary guidance and after putting her on a low carb diet for 6 weeks she actually told me that she was a former crack addict, and it was easier for her to quit crack coc aine than it was to give up potatoes! Think about that.

You know what the strongest gateway drug in the world is? Life. If you are alive you are MUCH more likely to try drugs. It's true. Think they will make life illegal?


I mean, life, leads to automatic addiction, that is how bad it is! You are born, addicted to oxygen and water! Oh no!

I mean, come on, yes, I know, energy drinks are bad for your heart. In fact I think I recall a news story several years back of some one dying after drinking too many energy drinks. I think it gave the guy a heart attack or something like that..... They do say not to drink those if you have any heart conditions....

Interesting, I bet they are worse for your health than Marijuana..... I bet. But I digress.

an adult can drink probably with no consequence to health or move to harder drugs.

children should not take these things.
in that vein i can see the "gateway" thinking.

hell, just give a kid chocolate or a soda, see what happens.


they don't need that stuff anyway! lol!