Energy drinks, alcohol a dangerous mix

In homes and dorm rooms across the country, young people are mixing a new kind of cocktail: energy drinks and alcohol.

The names of the drinks are sometimes amusing, such as 1-2-3-Floor, O-Bombs, and Raspberry Bulldozer, but they can have serious consequences.

Here in the Pee Dee, the trend has not escaped the notice of a number of public health officials who are constantly on the lookout for new information that may help them squelch underage drinking.

Dawn Hancock, coordinator of the 12th Judicial Circuit Alcohol Enforcement Team, said she has researched this popular method of alcohol consumption and it seems to be one of the more dangerous methods to date.

“It’s very popular, among college students,” Hancock said. “It’s very dangerous, because they tend to drink, and it tricks your brain into thinking differently. You’re combating two products against each other that have opposite effects. Alcohol is a depressant, and energy drinks are a stimulant.”

Energy drinks tend to mask the effects of drinking, often giving the user a feeling of invincibility, whereas typical cocktails only make the person feel a little drowsy and perhaps sluggish or uncoordinated. By mixing the two, Hancock said, the drinker gets the giddy feeling that accompanies drinking alcohol along with the increased energy and alertness of the energy drink.

“The energy drinks may mask stumbling and slurred speech and may give your body a false sense of security,” she said. “Alcohol and the energy drinks are diuretics in the sense that they both dehydrate you. At any given time when you’re consuming alcohol, your body has a greater risk of dehydration.”

That is only one of the many bad scenarios that often accompany mixing the two beverages. According to a study conducted by Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C., some of the dangers of mixing energy drinks with liquor include being twice as likely to be injured while drinking, to ride with a drunk driver, to commit sexual assault and nearly twice as likely to be sexually assaulted.

As energy drinks manufacturers began to notice the trend in bars of mixing Red Bull with a variety of hard liquors, they began to get on board with the trend by adding alcohol to energy drinks that are often sold by unsuspecting clerks in convenience and grocery stores across the country, Hancock said. Since the cans the drinks are sold in are usually similar to that of the original energy drink, some clerks mistaken sell the drinks to underage children.

“I think when Red Bull started being mixed with liquor, some of the companies that make energy drinks felt they were being left behind,” she said.

The packaging for one energy drink, called Rockstar, is similar to the alcoholic version, called Rockstar 21. Hancock said she knew of at least one instance in the Pee Dee where a mother had mistakenly bought the drink for her pre-teen child.

But a mistake is one thing. Knowingly giving a minor alcohol is not only a crime, but it also can hurt their development, Hancock said.

“The legal drinking age is 21 for a reason,” she said. “Studies have proven that people under the age of 21 should not be consuming alcohol because of brain development, body development, maturity level and lack of judgment, and alcohol effects all of those things. That’s one of the biggest reasons the legal drinking age is what it is.”

This new trend in alcohol consumption only adds fuel to the fire where underage drinking is concerned, Hancock said.

“(Underage drinkers) don’t drink to have a social drink,” she said. “Adults will think, ‘What is the big deal with kids having a drink?’ The big deal is, kids don’t have a social drink, they drink to get drunk. Sometimes, if they party all night long, these energy drinks help them do that.”