Save Sparks!
Monday, June 30th, 2008How did this happen? I just found out today that Anheuser-Busch has stopped production of Tilt. What a tragedy! This fine American product didn’t flop because people don’t like their product, oh no, they went under because a wave of babies used their lawyers to threaten them to stop production.
Armed with only weak statistics funded by partisan organizations (National Institute on Alcohol Abuse, Alcoholism and the Marin Institute), these no-life-crybabies were able to get Busch fold on its product. Now jointogether.org is turning its baby head towards Miller Brewing Company. They are trying to use a grass roots campaign to force Miller Brewing Company to stop making Sparks.
Where should I even start with this one? How about the fact that even the partisan reports are completely inconclusive, if not downright laughable. The two studies touted here seem to be the best arguments that money can buy, and even they are weak. Lets look at the one by Wake Forest University. They show a correlation between drinking caffeinated beverages and increased injuries. That’s right - a correlation, not causation. This while their summary admits “Greek society member[s]… [are] significantly more likely to consume alcohol mixed with energy drinks.” Why not draw a the correlation between “Greek society” and alcohol abuse then? Why not show a correlation between inexperienced young drinkers and injuries? Why must your report imply that caffeine + alcohol = bad? Oh yeah - because you were bought and paid for by a partisan organization. Way to whore yourself out Wake Forest.
Next is this partisan piece of crap excuse for a scientific study that admits on page two that it can’t even be shown that caffeinated alcoholic drinks are necessarily bad for you. The best they can come up with is “health researchers agree that caffeine consumption can have adverse health consequences, particularly at high doses”. That’s it? High doses of caffeine are bad for me? Why are we focusing on Miller and Busch then? Why not steer your angry mob towards Starbucks or Folgers? If caffeine is bad then those bastards must be the devil incarnate!
Listen up you baby anti-alcohol organizations. If you want to get people to stop drinking alcopop, then convince us that it is bad for us. You aren’t going to get caffiene off the market, and you aren’t going to get alcohol off the market. People are going to continue to mix their own caffinated beverages with or without the relatively weaker caffeinated beers. The problem with drinking in the US isn’t that there is alcohol mixed with caffeine in some drinks. The problem is that we don’t train people to consume alcohol in normal social settings. Kids don’t get experienced with drinking until they are away from the safety and comfort of their homes. So yes, when exposed to a taboo altered state for the first time away from role models, kids do tend to hurt themselves. Kids are going to get exposed eventually. Instead of putting on blinders and blaming a particular drink, why not realize that other countries have different practices and better results than we do. Why not get your baby heads out of the sand and start pushing an agenda that is show to be effective? Don’t you have anything better to do with your boring lives then try to control the lives of others? Jeez, have a Sparks - it may help.