Univ. of NH backtracks on energy drink sales ban
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) -- The University of New Hampshire has backtracked on its just-announced plan to stop selling energy drinks on campus, saying it needs more time to study the idea and gather input from students.
Citing health and safety concerns, the university said Monday morning it would remove Full Throttle, Red Bull, Moxie Energy and NOS from vending machines and its seven dining halls, cafes and convenience stores starting in January. But in a statement Monday night, university President Mark Huddleston said conflicting reports about the caffeine and sugar content of some of the drinks, as well as negative student reaction, prompted him to call for a delay.
"I want to be sure we respect our students' ability to make informed choices about what they consume," he said.
If the university eventually stops selling the energy drinks, it would be going a step further than other campuses that have banned alcoholic versions. University officials said Monday they were unaware of other colleges having taken the same step, though at least one other school - Mount St. Mary's College in Los Angeles - has a policy of not selling energy drinks in its dining halls. It does sell them from vending machines.
Rick MacDonald, assistant director of UNH dining, said earlier Monday that the decision was in keeping with Huddleston's goal to make UNH the healthiest campus in the country by 2020.
"This is one of many steps we have taken and will take in accomplishing that goal," he said.
Energy drinks typically contain more caffeine than soft drinks, along with large amounts of sugar and additional ingredients that claim to boost mental and physical energy. While such products are legal and safe when consumed as intended, they can be unsafe when overused or mixed with alcohol, said David May, assistant vice president for business affairs.
"Just recently there was an incident on campus involving energy drinks that helped send a student to the hospital," he said.
In a statement, Red Bull emphasized that its product meets federal safety requirements. An 8.4 oz. can of Red Bull contains 80 mg of caffeine, comparable to the estimated 65 to 120 mg of caffeine in an 8 oz. cup of drip coffee. Cola soft drinks have about 35 mg per 8 oz. can.
"These drinks have a similar caffeine content as coffee and do not contain alcohol. Since it would not be right to ban the sale of soda, coffee, or tea on a college campus, it's also inappropriate and unwarranted to single out and restrict the sale of energy drinks," the company said. "We are working with the University of New Hampshire to find a resolution."
In a survey of New Hampshire college students conducted last spring, 20 percent of the UNH participants reported that they had mixed alcohol and energy drinks during the last 30 days.
"They are popular, very popular," said sophomore Tim Quinney, 19, who said he very rarely consumes energy drinks because he doesn't care for the flavor. He said students who do enjoy the drinks will be slightly inconvenienced by having to go off campus, but said overall, the decision won't have much impact.
"Though I understand the concept behind it, we're adults," he said. "I would think we'd be capable of making decisions in our own best interest."
Senior Rob Johnson said he occasionally gets a Red Bull from the school library when he needs an extra boost while studying, and he said many students do mix the drinks with alcohol. One bar near campus recently ran a $1 Red Bull and vodka promotion and ran out of Red Bull by 10 p.m., he said.
Johnson said a sales ban doesn't make sense from a health standpoint - Why scapegoat one type of food or drink? - and he said the safety concerns were baffling.
"Most students go to parties off-campus, and stopping by a convenience store to buy an energy drink, often at a lower cost, is no problem to them. The only thing that I see this new ban doing is increasing sales of energy drinks at convenience stores in Durham," he said.
The drinks are now sold on campus in single-serving cans and multipacks. According to the university, 60,000 energy drinks were sold last year, or one half of one percent of retail sales.
I love the fact that UNH is NOW going to check the caffeine and sugar content AFTER they already instituted the ban. It is such a liberal progressive move to take away the peoples' freedom of choice as a knee jerk reaction to some over hyped incident. I'm not saying this is the next prohibition, but just because 1 in 5 students had a Vodka Red Bull last April, and 1/60,000 drinks sold led to a hospital visit doesn't mean that the University has the right to take away an entire genre of products from their entire student body.
I'm sure legally they have the right, but it is just such bullshit that we as young Americans have it so instilled in us that it is the responsibility of the government to take care of us. That shit doesn't work. I never even heard of 4-Loco until it was made illegal. I spent the next week trying to find a can so I can see what all the fuss is about. It's basically the same thing with drinking, drugs, sex... anything. People instinctively want what they can't have. Does UNH really think that this is going to fix anything?
UNH should have instead sent out an email to students warning them of the risks of high sugar/caffiene drinks, except that UNH hadn't actually gathered any actual information, per se. Raise awareness. Then it is up to each one of us ADULTS, to make the decision for ourselves. Those are our rights as individuals. Sure, UNH has the right as an institution to also sell what they want. That isn't my issue. My issue is that they presented this a good solution to the non existant energy drink abuse problem.
I think the perfect example is cigarettes vs. weed. Cigarettes were never made illegal, but instead they spent all the resources that would have gone into enforcing an unenforceable law into spreading the information. I never got into smoking, and I think only about 5% of my friends smoke, because 'The Truth' told me for my entire childhood that smoking will destroy me. To this day, no one has been able to show me reliable information that weed is any more medically harmful than anything else that people consume on a daily basis. I heard of weed when I was like 12, and all I knew is that it was illegal, but all the cool kids are doing it secretly, and the parents don't know. Obviously that just made me more curious about it. I know a hell of a lot more people that smoke weed.
When you start telling people what they can and can't do it is such a slippery slope that I'd rather not even put the dominoes in motion. What happens when a freshman drinks 5 captain and cokes and then crashes their car? No more soda because it makes kids drink more alcohol? Natural juices only for everyone! Candy is making kids too obese for UNH to win the coveted 2020 healthiest campus competition in which only they are competing, so no more chocolate. What, dairy is fattening? No more pizza. I'm telling you guys it isn't as rediculous as you think. If you had told someone 20 years ago that they wouldn't be able to smoke in a restaurant they would have said it will never happen. 10 years ago if you told someone they wouldn't be able to talk on their cell phone while driving they would have said you were crazy. 5 years ago if you told them that institutions would stop selling soda or energy drinks for health reasons you would have said they were crazy.
Once the precedent on these things is set, it just keeps going and going and going. It is not crazy to think that in 10 years you will only be able to buy all natural, organic food, with nothing but juices and water. No pizza, no french fries, no chicken fingers, no condiments. If that is the way I want to go, that is a CHOICE that I get to make. All those things would be perfectly justifiable to ban, with the same exact argument that we are now accepting for the energy drinks. Sure it looks great on paper, but that isn't the world I want my kids to live in. The choices we make as individuals are what makes the country great. It is the unintended consequences of these ultimatums are always overlooked by liberal left. Just a quick example: Every state that has put a ban on texting while driving has seen a massive increase in accidents and deaths as a result of texting while driving. The reason is that instead of holding the phone up, and keeping the phone in your periphery, people now text with their phones in their laps so cops can't see, so they can't see the road at all. Any idiot could have seen that coming, but no... texting=bad so we must pass a law and assume it will all work out.
I think the UNH kids that commented on the policy in the article at the end have it basically right. All this is going to do is take profit out of the school which we the students will eventually pay in higher tuition, inconvenience students who now have to drunk drive to CAMCO to buy a fucking NOS, and it just further takes away any sense of personal responsibility from the next generation of Americans.
#LetUsChoose
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