Health Concerns

Hallucinogenic Frenzies and Hospitalized College Kids: Four Loko Hysteria Reaches a Fevered Pitch

Four Loko
Four Loko Photo: m. treatzone/Flickr

Four Loko, the sickly fruity-sweet malt-based elixir that packs a two-fisted punch of absurd amounts of caffeine and alcohol, is perhaps the greatest scourge to society since communism, or maybe crack cocaine. With all the foaming-at-the-mouth hyper-sensational media attention the gimmicky beverage has been getting lately, that’s what we’ve been led to believe, anyway. In the latest round, the Daily News is reporting that an unspecified number of Saint Joseph’s University students have been hospitalized after consuming Four Loko, but there doesn’t appear to be any facts or figures in the piece to substantiate the claims. Even sillier is the CBS Philly story of a suburban dad who “spiraled into a hallucinogenic frenzy” quaffing a can of Four Loko with his son.

As the story goes, the Loko dad got so zonked on a single can of the stuff that he convinced himself that he somehow had harmed his kids, and thought that he had to kill his wife and himself so he could make things right in heaven. Holy tin foil hats! You can’t make this stuff up. Or can you?

Seems like the only thing all this hysteria is doing is creating a lot of publicity for the increasingly popular drink, which in the end is really one brilliant viral marketing campaign.
St. Joe’s students sickened living La Vida Loko: Drank beverage equal to many beers, lots of coffee [Daily News]
‘Four Loko’ Blamed For Hallucinogenic Frenzy [CBS Philly]

Earlier: PLCB Wants Four Loko Pulled Off Store Shelves

Hallucinogenic Frenzies and Hospitalized College Kids: Four Loko Hysteria