Communication forwarded from: Join Together,
April 13, 2007
'Spykes'
Sparks Concern, Activism over Kid-Friendly Mix of Alcohol, Energy
Drinks
Information referred to The Ohio Resource Network by: Mike
Magnusson, MSE, OCPSII, (NPN), Chief of the Division of Prevention Services
Ohio Department of Alcohol and Drug Addiction Services
The recent controversy about Anheuser-Busch's "Spykes" energy drinks has prompted
grassroots advocacy as well as broader concerns about mixing alcohol and energy drinks.
Sold in pocket-sized bottles and containing 12 percent alcohol, Spykesis being marketed as an
additive for soda, juices, beer and other alcoholic beverages. "Spykes is a great
alternative to hard liquor shots," according to the Anheuser-Busch product website for
Spykes. "A Spykes pour takes beer up a notch by adding a caffeinated rush and a sweet
taste that finishes hot ... Spykes gives your beer a kick, adds flavor to your drink, and
is perfect for a shot." Recently several articles have been written about Spykes.
Spykes are a malt beverage manufactured and distributed by Anheuser Busch. They
contain about 12% alcohol by volume and are intended to add flavor to your beer, spyke
your drink, or as a shooter. They are sold in 1.7 ounce glass bottles or 2 ounce
plastic bottles. The bottles are sold in cases of 24. Spykes cost about
75¢ each.
Spykes were market tested in bars, but have recently gone into distribution in markets
and liquor stores. Currently, they are not available in Ohio1, but that
is only because they have not begun distribution in Ohio. It may be in the best
interest of community coalitions to be proactive in approaching liquor stores in their
areas to voice their concern for the product and encourage the stores not to purchase
Spykes.
But critics see the product's bright packaging and fruity flavors -- Spicy Lime, Hot
Chocolate, Spicy Mango, and Hot Melons -- as a blatant attempt to market the product to
children. Hope Taft, former First Lady of Ohio and a board member of the group Leadership to Keep Children
Alcohol Free, dashed off a March 30 letter to Anheuser-Busch president and CEO
August Busch IV to protest Spykes' "appeal to those under the age of 21." "It
is colorful, flavorful and comes in small, easy-to-conceal sizes, just the qualities
today's teenagers are looking for," wrote Taft, who has a long track record in youth drug
prevention. "With high-school prom season fast approaching, even your marketing suggests
its appeal to underage kids by suggesting 'slipping it into a tiny purse or tuxedo
jacket.' The vast majority of tux jackets are worn by high school students this time of
year." "Please be responsible corporate citizens and stop selling Spykes," implored
Taft.
Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of
America(CADCA) chairman Arthur Dean also wrote a letter to company executives
calling for Spykes to be pulled from the market. "It is hard to believe that
Anheuser-Busch does not intentionally market to people under 21 when a product with the
flavoring, marketing, and price point of Spykes appears on the market," wrote
Dean.
Joseph Califano, chairman and president of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, called
Spykes "a predatory move to attract underage drinking," comparing marketing of the
product to Reynolds Tobacco's attempts to sell sweet-flavored cigarettes in the U.S. --
another product slammed for appealing to kids. "No 30- or 40-year-old beer drinker
is going to add hot chocolate or some other flavor to make beer more palatable, but kids
will and when they do they will get two drinks in one," said Califano.
Call for Local Advocacy
CADCA has launched a letter-writing campaign targeting Anheuser-Busch and local
distributors and retailers, and the Center for Science in the Public Interest(CSPI) also sent out
an action alert urging prevention groups to contact their local
Anheuser-Busch distributorsand alcohol retailers to ask them to stop selling
Spykes. "Anheuser-Busch is practically begging to be investigated, subpoenaed,
sued, or hauled before a Congressional committee to explain this one," said CSPI Alcohol
Policies Project director George Hacker. To that end, CSPI also wrote to members of
the National Association of Attorneys
General's(NAAG) Youth Access to Alcohol Task Force asking them to investigate
Spykes, and is urging local health groups to do the same. Jessica Maurer, special
assistant to Maine Attorney General Steve Rowe, co-chair of the NAAG task force, said
that the panel is "terribly concerned about Spykes" and other products that mix alcohol
and energy drinks. "This is the worst tip of the iceberg, but there's a whole iceberg
under there," she said of Spykes.
The brewer's response to the flap has hardly been conciliatory. Francine I. Katz, vice president of communications and consumer affairs for
Anheuser-Busch, said Spykes is being marketed to "adult consumers" who are
"looking for innovative alcohol beverages to match their active lifestyles" and
attributed the criticism of Spykes to "perennial, fear-mongering anti-alcohol groups
whose members are in the business of spreading misinformation." She added: "Those
who are concerned about the concealability of small containers should focus on those
hard-liquor beverages [such as airline "mini-bottles"] already on the market that has
three to four times greater concentration of alcohol by volume than Spykes."
The Oregon
Partnership, a member of CADCA, was among the first groups to raise a red flag
about Spykes, which hit store shelves in January. As a result of the Partnership's
advocacy, beer distributors in Oregon agreed in February to stop selling Spykes. That
victory helped generate widespread media coverage of the Spykes controversy as well as
additional grassroots activity. Most recently, the town of West Bridgewater,
Mass., this week passed a local ordinance banning the sale of Spykes. "We need to reach
out to our community and surrounding towns ... to get a similar ban there and hope that
it's a chain reaction throughout the state," West Bridgewater Selectman Jerry Lawrence
told WBZ-TV on April 10.
The Larger Problem: Alcohol and Energy Drinks
Critics say that beyond the issues of Spykes' kid-friendly packaging and marketing
(the product website includes free Spykes instant-messenger icons and cell phone
ringtones) belies the larger problem of mixing alcohol and energy drinks. "This is
not just about giving people a sense of well-being and alertness," said CSPI's Hacker,
"but making people believe that they are capable of continuing their alcohol
consumption.” Hacker said the ultimate goal for Anheuser-Busch is to sell more
alcohol, pointing to a comment posted on the Spykes website (since removed) from a
purported Spykes drinker, stating: "I can drink these all day, and be ready to go out and
party all night."
Despite an ingredient list that includes the stimulants caffeine, guarana, and ginseng
-- all commonly found in energy drinks -- Anheuser-Busch's Katz said that Spykes "is
neither a high-alcohol content drink, nor an energy drink," adding that each serving has
about the same amount of alcohol as a third of a glass of wine and about as much caffeine
as in an ounce of dark chocolate. Industry experts say that the introduction of
Spykes is Anheuser-Busch's reaction to the popular practice of mixing energy drinks like
Red Bull with vodka and other liquor/energy drink combinations that have eroded the
market share for beer. "I'm afraid this is the first wave of what we're going to see in
the future," said Judy Cushing, executive director of the Oregon Partnership. "Why can't
the industry just stick with producing adult beverages? Are they getting
desperate?"
Concern about the danger of mixing energy drinks and alcohol is nothing new: as far
back as 2001, researcher David Pearson of Ball State University's Human Performance
Laboratorywas warning that mixing the stimulants in energy drinks with the
depressant alcohol could lead to cardiopulmonary and cardiovascular health
problems. Since then, a number of other energy drinks premixed with alcohol
have hit the marketplace, including Anheuser-Busch's own Tilt, P.I.N.K. Vodka, Liquid Core, and Liquid
Charge. In the April 2006 issue of the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, Brazilian
researchers reportedthat people who combined alcohol and Red Bull tended
to overlook the extent of their alcohol impairment because the energy drink made them
feel so awake.
"Although combined ingestion decreases the sensation of tiredness and sleepiness,
objective measures of motor coordination showed that it cannot reduce the harmful effects
of alcohol on motor coordination," said researcher Maria Lucia O. Souza-Formigoni of the
Federal University of Sao Paulo. "In other words, the person is drunk but does not feel
as drunk as he really is. The second important point is that many users reported using
energy drinks to reduce a not-so-pleasant taste of alcoholic beverages, which could
dangerously increase the amount (as well as the speed of ingestion) of alcoholic
beverages." Researchers expressed particular concern that those who mix alcohol and
energy drinks could be more likely to drink and drive.
Maurer told Join Together that the NAAG Youth Access to Alcohol Task Force has
"actually been looking into the issue of energy drinks combined with alcohol long before
the recent controversy about Spykes." The panel has found, for example, that a number of
other nations actively discourage consumers from combining energy drinks with alcohol,
including thorough warning labels on product packages. The public attention and awareness
generated by the introduction of Spykes could help pave the way for future action on the
broader issue of alcohol and energy drinks, suggested Maurer.
This warning is being sent to inform parents, prevention and treatment
professionals, law enforcement, and educators of this emerging trend.
Join CADCA in a letter-writing campaign targeting Anheuser-Busch and local
distributors and retailers. The Center for Science
in the Public Interest(CSPI) also sent out an action
alert urging prevention groups to contact their local Anheuser-Busch
distributorsand alcohol retailers to ask them to stop
selling Spykes.
Please distribute this information through list serves, newsletters or
bulletin boards, etc. using the Ohio Early Warning Network as your source.
For additional information on the above alert contact: The Ohio Resource Network for
Safe and Drug Free Schools and Communities, P.O. Box 210109, 2624 Clifton Ave Cincinnati,
Ohio 45221-0109 Phone # 1-800-788-7254 or fax# 1-513-556-0782.
To participate in this OEWN initiative, visit www.ebasedprevention.organd
fill out the OEWN registration form. Anyone in Ohio can report an issue to the Ohio
Early Warning Network by calling the toll-free non-emergency InfoLine at 1-866-OhioEWN.
This alert is brought to you by the Ohio Early Warning Network
initiative sponsored by: the Ohio Department of Alcohol and Drug Addictions Services, the
Ohio Department of Education, and the Ohio National Guard
The information appearing on this alert is presented for educational
purposes only. While the information published on this site is believed to be accurate,
it is not intended to substitute for your own informational gathering or professional
medical advice.
1 Spykes website provides a retail locator. When Ohio zip
codes were entered into the locator, no retailers could be found. A further call to
area Kroger stores revealed that they did not sell the product.
