The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) put out a warning years ago about the harms associated with mixing alcohol and caffeine. That did not stop beverage giants for producing caffeinated alcohol beverages such as Four Loko which combined the two and was briefly marketed in the United States. College students and young professionals alike were already mixing energy drinks with vodka and other liquors, so companies began to mass produce the combination marketing it to college-aged students or in some cases an even younger age group.
In 2010, the FDA stepped in and said that energy drinks with alcohol could no longer be sold in their current form. So why would the FDA take such as drastic step to remove a product from the shelves? Caffeine mixed with alcohol can have detrimental effects such as “making drinkers feel more alert than they would otherwise.” This means that when combined, alcohol and caffeine could result in a person becoming more impaired because they would continue to drink more not realizing how intoxicated they were.
Mixing alcohol and energy drinks has always been attributed with a younger demographic. Children in middle school and high school not only are more likely to binge drink but they are more likely to consume alcohol with energy drinks according to the CDC. Marketers seized the opportunity to capitalize on this by directing many advertisements directly to youth.