Youth, Alcohol and Energy Drinks
Background Policy Note

MADD Canada shares the concerns that have recently been expressed about young peoples’ increasing consumption of energy drinks in combination with alcohol. These drinks, such as Red Bull, Venom and Adrenalin Rush, typically contain large quantities of caffeine and other stimulants, such as ephedrine and ginseng. The beverages are aggressively marketed to youth, and are popular among college and university students. Sales of these beverages have risen sharply, and Anheuser-Busch, among others, has introduced its own line of products.

There is good reason to be concerned about these beverages, particularly when they are consumed with alcohol. Caffeine and alcohol are both diuretics that can result in life-threatening cases of dehydration. Ephedrine in combination with caffeine can trigger heart palpitations and other cardiac problems.

The more prevalent concern about combining these drinks with alcohol is that their stimulant effects mask the patrons’ level of impairment. The energy drinks offset some of the symptoms of impairment, but not the impairment itself. In common parlance, combining these drinks with alcohol creates wide awake drunks who believe they are still sober. This creates two problems.

First, the energy drinks offset alcohol’s depressant effects, which would otherwise result in increased drowsiness and the other common characteristics of impairment. Rather than calling it a night, the patron stays in the bar and continues to drink alcohol. In Canada, young people already have the highest rates of weekly, monthly and total binge drinking. Since energy drinks may encourage even more dangerous levels of intoxication among youth, they should be seen as posing a serious risk of increased alcohol-related trauma death within this vulnerable constituency.

Second, by creating a false sense of sobriety, energy drinks may encourage intoxicated youth to drive, attempt to cross a busy street, or engage in other high-risk activities. In Canada, youth are already over-represented in virtually all categories of alcohol-related trauma death. For example, those between the ages of 16 and 25 constitute only 13.7% of the Canadian population, but account for 32.1% of all alcohol-related traffic deaths. By inducing intoxicated youth to participate in high-risk activities, energy drinks pose added risks of alcohol-related trauma.

A recent study of almost 4,300 American college students reported that a quarter of all students reported having energy drink cocktails in the previous 30 days. Compared to those who did not combine energy drinks with alcohol, the group that did were twice as likely to: be hurt or injured; require medical attention; and travel with a drunk driver. They were more than twice as likely to take sexual advantage of another person and almost twice as likely to be taken advantage of sexually. They drank up to 36% more alcohol per typical drinking session than other students, and reported double the episodes of weekly drunkenness. As the lead author of the study commented, “only the symptoms of drunkenness are reduced – but not the drunkenness. They can’t tell if they’re drunk, they can’t tell if someone else is drunk. So they get hurt, or they hurt someone else.” “Students should be informed about the risks of mixing alcohol with energy drinks...” The study was presented at the 2007 Annual Meeting of the American Public Health Association.

For further information, call:

Andrew Murie
MADD Canada’s CEO
1-800-665-6233, ext. 224