A group of attorneys general from 25 states have asked MillerCoors to scrap plans to introduce a new product in its Sparks line of caffeinated malt beverages.
The brewing company’s Sparks Red “defies increasing undeniable evidence from medical and public health professionals about the dangers of mixing alcohol with stimulants found in energy drinks,” said the letter sent Wednesday to Leo Kiely, MillerCoors chief executive officer.
Sparks Red, now set to launch in October, is reported to be a citrus-flavored malt beverage incorporating caffeine and other stimulants such as guarana. At 8%, it will have higher alcohol content than the 6% to 7% alcohol level of other beverages in the Sparks line.
The attorneys general charged in their letter that adding stimulants to alcohol dampens drinkers’ perception of possible intoxication and promotes “the delusion of drinking and functioning without impairment.”
MillerCoors spokesman Julian Green said in a statement that the federal Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade bureau had approved the product’s makeup and packaging.
“We have and we will continue to ensure that the labeling, marketing and product formulations of all our brands meet all applicable federal regulations, and that our brands are marketed responsibly to legal drinking age adults,” Green said.
Last June a similar multi-state effort by law enforcement officials got rival brewer Anheuser-Busch to agree to take its caffeinated alcohol brands Bud Extra and Tilt out of production until they can be reformulated without stimulants.
“When Anheuser-Busch was presented with the facts about the dangers of mixing alcohol and caffeine, it did the right thing and took its caffeinated alcohol products off the market,” said New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, a signatory to both the June letter and the one sent this week. “MillerCoors, by contrast, isn’t just continuing to ignore the dangers of its current product. It has now decided to put out an even more dangerous one.”
Both Anheuser-Busch and Miller also felt pressure from the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington D.C.-based advocacy group that has long argued against caffeinated alcohol products and alleged that they were targeted specifically at the young adult market. A-B met with officials from CSPI shortly before agreeing to revamp its products in June.
However, MillerCoors has refused to meet to discuss CSPI’s concerns. Last week the group filed a lawsuit against the brewer, saying that the Sparks product line uses ingredients not approved for combination with alcohol. The suit, filed in Superior Court in Washington D.C., also accuses MillerCoors of false advertising claims that the stimulants in Sparks will help curb the effects of the alcohol.
Both the attorneys general writing to MillerCoors and CSPI have pointed to research done on college students at Wake Forest University in 2007. That study that found a correlation between consumption of alcohol-based energy drinks and binge drinking.
But the authors of the study acknowledged in their publication that the link between alcoholic energy drinks and higher alcohol-related consequences might not be one of cause and effect. Instead, they said, the personality types drawn to the alcohol/caffeine beverages might also be prone to thrill-seeking behaviors such as drinking and driving.
Besides New York’s Cuomo, other names attached to the letter to MillerCoors’ Kiely were attorneys general from Connecticut, California, Arizona, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, Washington state, West Virginia and Wyoming.
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