kids drink before they're 21? what?!?!

there has been a bit of hype in the media regarding a new anheuser-busch product on the market. spykes are 2 ounce bottles of malt liquor - sold in four flavors: melon, lime, chocolate, and mango (side note: the melon flavor is actually labelled HOT MELONS...ha). they are intended to (duh) spike your beer or drink, adding a kick of caffeine, alcohol, ginseng and guarana. a-b says you can take it as a shot, but i did that with one of the lime ones - and i will advise against it. i burped up lime for a day and a half.

anyways, apparently some groups feel as though this product is being marketed directly towards underage drinkers.

"With prom season and all its attendant hazards around the corner, some law enforcers and health advocates are adding one more cause for parents to worry — a new alcoholic beverage called Spykes that is sized, flavored and priced in a way that critics say is aimed at teens. It’s also cute — about the size of a nail polish bottle — so it can easily slip into the tiniest clutch purse or tuxedo pocket." (read the whole msnbc article here)

and, with it's resemblance to nail polish, it may be overlooked by law enforcement officers who are checking girls purses. on top of that, it's 12% alcohol by volume.

have these people never seen airplane bottles of liquor? i mean, they are making such a big deal about the bottles being small and cute - i think a mini-bottle of crown royal is about as cute as it gets. and if a police offer mistakes a bottle of booze for a bottle of nail polish, he should lose his job and be heckled by the commoners...because he's obviously an idiot.

the threat of drunken students at prom is not new, i'm sure you all remember prom. oh wait, you probably don't remember because you swiped a bottle of vodka from your parents liquor cabinet and mixed it into a slurpee on your way there. if an 18 year old wants to get drunk before a dance, they are going to figure a way to do it, whether a-b makes a cute little bottle of booze or not.

and where were the advocacy groups when jack daniels made country cocktails? those were tasty treats for kids (at least they were for me). or mike's hard lemonade and the 18 lines of flavored bevs that came after it? my guess is that any liquor company developing new products like these is NOT trying to get underage kids drunk...they are trying to make MONEY. and the underage kids are not their target market, they can't buy their product legally and don't have money. you think a-b is going to spend millions of dollars creating a product on the off chance that a small percentage of under-21's with fake id's will buy? probably not.

_

so, i think that these groups trying to take on a-b should probably spend their time getting parents and schools to pay attention to what their kids are doing...rather than try to rid the world of alcohol products.