The FDA: Federal Doofus Association

[Crazed Rabbit]

It's like the outcry over the banning of trans fat. "the government is trying to ban tasty food!". But actually they are banning an industrial product that is used because it's cheap and convenient not because it tastes better.

Something they (Center for Science in the Public Interest) used to (1990) encourage the use of?

This is not about banning foods because of the taste or because the government thinks its business is to intervene in peoples diets. It's genuinely about the alcohol poisoning issue.

How is this not intervening in people's diets? Even if the issue is alcohol poisoning, it's still interference in what people consume.

Does this product really make it more likely, or are politicians just overreacting to some recent events? Some idiots misusing the drinks are no excuse for a ban, just like idiots killing themselves speeding are no excuse for a ban on really fast cars.

A second issue is people thinking they can drive. But the main issue is that the products are deemed deceptive. That's what you're skipping.

I thought it was genuinely about the alcohol poisoning, not deceptiveness. Does it not state the ABV and that it contains caffeine?

If you acknowledge that consumers can mix the drinks themselves then what was all that about "the government deciding how we drink". They are only deciding what we can buy conveniently prepackaged.

They are putting barriers to drinking certain items - making it harder to consume certain types of products and not others.

More generally though, I think you do a disservice to the true spirit of wanting to be free from government interference when you use this kind of rhetoric in defense of 24 ounce blue raspberry 12.0% abv energy drinks...if they are wrong then it is purely for the principle and the slippery slope nature.

It's like freedom of speech; you have to defend hateful speech to defend all speech. Here you have to defend something you'd never care to drink in order to protect your right to eat what you want without government taxes or regulations compelling you one way or another.

EDIT:

Bless the Western democracies for having health inspections and food safety agencies.

You eat and drink stuff, kids put it in their mouths. Thank God independent government run agencies provide the consumer with some protection. Much as the cowboys of this world would prefer for all that regulation to dissappear.

I am here to call your bluff. You haven't read the article or even a related wiki article.

This isn't about consumer protection. Caffeine and alcohol are both safe to drink, together or apart. An unsafe product would harm people who used any amount of it. This is a ban because the government believes there's the possibility you will drink too much and not control yourself.

As for the FDA; I have no love for them, nor for how they deny dying patients access to experimental treatments.

Against all this, consumers need to protect themselves.

Then let them do so by making their own decisions. We are not children and should not be treated as such.

CR