File under: No Shit, Sherlock
From nytimes.com: "Federal officials have received reports of 13 deaths over the last four years that cited the possible involvement of 5-Hour Energy, a highly caffeinated energy shot, according to Food and Drug Administration records and an interview with an agency official.
The disclosure of the reports is the second time in recent weeks that F.D.A. filings citing energy drinks and deaths have emerged. Last month, the agency acknowledged it had received five fatality filings mentioning another popular energy drink, Monster Energy."
In fifty years, when cats are actually talking to us and people roam Starbucks Presents Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamburgers in their underwear, energy drinks will be frowned upon. They'll not be made illegal mind you, because there will be an amendment to the US Constitution that prohibits any kind of ban on any type of food or drink that keeps fat people fat and sweaty. But "back in the day" (twenty years from now) too many "old-timers" will have suffered from heart-shrinkage and severe erectile dysfunction from energy drinks, so no one in their right mind will want to put an ounce of the gross shit in their body. You can still get a frappucino.
I really hope I'm fucking dead by this time because if this is even close to what the future will actually be like, it'll blow goats into infinity and beyond. Remember: the future always sucks.
The first few paragraphs of this article are vague in the sense that the facts are all based on possibility. The relative information is weak because there specifically isn't any direct connection between these drinks and any deaths. That being said, NO ONE IN THEIR RIGHT MIND SHOULD REALLY BE DRINKING THIS JUNK. And I think most of us who understand the concept of nutrition get this notion that energy drinks are not good for you. It's concentrated caffeine and sugar. This Monster drink is bright green. It literally looks like every animated version of toxic sludge drawn by some poorly paid art school drop-out.
The key here is concentration. There isn't any mention in the article of overdosing on the drinks, but it does state that a single 5-hour Energy Shot has about 215 mg of caffeine. And I have seen with my own bastard, sad-sack eyes people drink multiple 5-hour Energy Shots in a short time, like maybe an hour or an hour and a half. First, barf barf vomit barf. Have you tried the drink? It tastes like an electrocuted Kool-Aid Man. Second, welcome your heart to the Daytona 500 and buckle up, because you'll be jittery and dropping everything you touch in mere seconds. Obviously, an overdose of 5-Hour Energy can be the same as an overdose of coffee but people aren't doing that. Asshole grad students are drinking five or six cups of coffee over a twelve hour period in which they should be sleeping.
Accessibility of a small little drink that's "guaranteed to jack you up." (That's Josh Harnett's character Zeke from "The Faculty") is pretty important here, too. No one wants to drink a shitty cup of coffee (and if you do, then shame the fuck on you) but no one is discerning about the taste of energy drinks. Little Trey isn't driving to another part of town to purchase a Monster drink over the 5-Hour Energy Drinks that the 7-11 down the road sells. Also, every store between the 7-11 and the convenience store with Monster drinks has 5-Hour Energy, including the dentist that Little Trey hasn't been to in twelve years.
I'm not arguing that coffee is better for you than energy drinks because I'm not a complete moron. No one has said that drinking coffee is really good for you. That would be fucking stupid. But it's a drug and humans like drugs. Maybe people just don't give a shit about what's in the drink so they're chugged like how water should be. Maybe Little Trey in his red Mustang just likes the fucking ball-sweat taste of energy drinks. Who the fuck knows.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/15/business/5-hour-energy-is-cited-in-13-death-reports.html?src=me&ref=general&_r=0
