NEWS: Cocaine is High Energy, Low Marketing

CULTURE: Cocaine is High Energy, Low Marketing

A friend of mine walked into a 7-Eleven recently, eyed the tasty beverages, and then asked the guy behind the counter, "Do you have Cocaine?"

He just kind of looked at her funny. "Huh?" He asked.

"Cocaine," she repeated. "Do you carry Cocaine? It's a gosh-darned energy drink, mang."

Okay, so maybe she didn't say "gosh-darned," and she definitely didn't say "mang," but she was hard up for a liquid boost and Cocaine was the drink of the hour. Marketed as "liquid cocaine" and "speed in a can," and sold in at least twelve states since last August, the beverage has unsurprisingly ruffled some feathers. Now it's been pulled from stores due to "concerns about its name."

Clegg Ivey, a partner in Redux Beverages, the company that produces Cocaine, thinks that the FDA et al are totally tweaking, and defends the product name and marketing strategy as "tongue-in-cheek."

Yes, indeed. They love the ideas, the name, the campaign, the heart-racy fabulous jittery feeling that they can buzzbuzzbuzz through anything because they are 20 to 30-somethings who don't do drugs. Still, whether or not Cocaine drinkers are cocaine users isn't really the point, is it? It seems that this has become a hazy question of social responsibility and ethics, though not necessarily FDA rule breaking. Would a fashion line called "Heroin" inspire the same concern? A record label called "Crack Rock?"

Redux plans to sell the drink under a new name for the time being.

after hearing about how severely underfunded the FDA is, so that it can't even inspect much of what's coming in to american ports from overseas, it's not exactly comforting to hear they are using the few hard-earned tax dollars they do have to go after a marketing scheme.

such an incredibly small number of people would actually think the energy drink is made with blow (and what exactly would their damages be--the price of a can of the stuff that upon discovering its completely legal content they would have otherwise spent that three bucks on about four molecules of actual cocaine?)

when you consider how many pets were harmed by the recent pet food contamination incident and the potential for harmful food additives to get into the country's food supply and harm people (i.e. potentially everyone who EATS), doesn't it seem like protecting the like six absolute retards who would buy this drink thinking it had coke in it is just downright stupid?

not to mention they'd be being protected from, um, caffeine. wait, huh?

yeah, wouldn't we rather have them hopped up on caffeine than coke anyway?

who's exactly losing something here?

"cocaine" is a powerful word. it's attention-grabbing. if i wanted to make an energy drink and call it "blood of virgins" would the FDA shut me down too because no virgins were actually harmed in the manufacturing process?

I am pleased that my tax dollars pay for this shit. Seriously. It doesn't piss me off at all.

How about a record label called Murder, Inc. or Death Row? Or a fashion line called "fcuk"?

me too!
you wanna start a business?

Wasn't this a story on the Daily Show a while back?

I think they should go after Coca-Cola next.

that's kind of what i'm wondering too. i'd like to see some official correspondence from the FDA citing to some regulation. helen asked me about it actually and i told her the only basis i could think of for objecting to the name would be some type of consumer protection law, like prohibiting deceptive advertising, but that doesn't seem to fly here, as i said above.

i know very little about FDA regulations, but i can't imagine what grounds the FDA would rely on here.

Making the ads would be a blast. Sign me up.

you can direct our commercials.

Drug inspired drink names. How about Can of Piss?

hey, i'm working on a beer by that name!! copyright, muthafukka!

While we're at it, I'm gonna start a band called Crystal Meth-od....oh.....


SHIT!

Whizz?
Chazz?
Fishscale?

Exactly what I was thinking. A while back I'd seen a full-page article in the paper about the controversy and figured it wouldn't last, if it ever came out. I was right. Never even got to try it.

Now, that Blood of Virgins sounds intriguing. Let me now when you guys start it flowing.

I prefer a good Dickens Cider.

Boom boom, ain't it great to be crazy?

I love those Dickens Cider ads, but can't find the first one I ever heard, which was my favourite.

haha as soon as I heard about this drink coming out I knew this would happen.

yeah, the main obstacle is finding some virgins in los angeles. we should incorporate in utah.

HEY-O!