How are these different? Three have alcohol, one doesn't

VIRGINIA BEACH

The Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control began sending underage operatives into stores in the 1990s in an attempt to buy alcohol, usually beer.

But in the past year, they began targeting another beverage: alcoholic energy drinks.

The rising popularity of the drinks with teens fueled the change, said Robert Simmons Jr., an ABC special agent. They pose a special problem because they look like their non alcoholic counterparts, making them easy to slip past distracted or uninformed cashiers and fool parents and sometimes even police, he said. But with as much caffeine as several cups of coffee and twice as much alcohol as beer, they can be dangerous in the hands of teenagers, Simmons added.

"We're starting to see young people who are starting to get hurt," he said, "whether it's a car accident or where they're OD'ing. Too much of any drink can be harmful. Too much caffeine can be harmful."

Alcoholic energy drinks are not new. They started showing up in stores in early 2005. But the issue was brought home recently when police linked an alcoholic energy drink to the March 7 death of a Virginia Beach teen.

Investigators say one of the beverages played a role in the early morning car crash that killed passenger Joseph "Joey" Fonseca, 16. The driver, another 16-year-old, is now facing charges of drunken driving and involuntary manslaughter. The teens were good friends and teammates on the Kempsville High School varsity baseball team, friends said.

Claire Scott, a Kempsville sophomore, said she'd been friends with Joseph since middle school. She said he and the driver often attended parties together and liked to drink Four Loko, a caffeine-infused malt liquor that contains 12 percent alcohol.

She said drinks such as that, as well as other flavored malt beverages sold at convenience stores and grocers, have largely replaced beer as the drink of choice at teen parties.

"If you hear somebody is having a party, it's not really beer; it's the other drinks that they have," she said.

Lt. Doug Backman, who oversees the Police Department's Special Operations, said police have also noticed the trend. "I see these cans all over the place," he said. "I think the marketing is very targeted toward juveniles."

And that's the problem, Simmons said. Alcoholic energy drinks come in fruity flavors such as watermelon, orange and fruit punch and are packaged in brightly colored cans, some depicting dragons, panthers or skulls and roses. They've got names such as Joose, Max, Four Loko and Liquid Charge. "The titles are all geared at young people. That's the way they talk and that's their lingo," Simmons said. "I'm not going to look for Joose or some of these other drinks. So you have to wonder what they were thinking about when they tried to market these products."

Most of the products also have high alcohol content, ranging from 9.9 percent to 12 percent. The average beer is 5 percent alcohol. So one may be enough for a teenager to become intoxicated, Simmons said.

Alcoholic energy drinks are classified as beer in the state code, just like Mike's Hard Lemonade, Smirnoff Ice or other malt beverages. That means they can be sold at stores such as Wawa and 7-Eleven up until midnight. The seller must have an alcohol license and is responsible for carding customers.

But when it comes to verifying the age of young people trying to buy alcohol, Hampton Roads stores get a C.

Between July 2009 and February, local teens participating in the ABC department's Underage Buyer Program were successful in buying alcohol nearly a quarter of the times they tried. Out of 353 attempts, clerks turned them away 76.5 percent of the time, according to results posted on the ABC department's website.

In stores, alcoholic energy drinks are displayed with beer and wine, separate from nonalcoholic drinks such as Red Bull. At locations with computerized systems, the register will prompt clerks to check ID when an alcoholic product is scanned. But that prompt can usually be overridden, Simmons said.

And employees at stores with older registers have to be even more vigilant, especially because the alcoholic energy drinks look so similar to the nonalcoholic versions, he said.

If cashiers don't know about the products or are tired or distracted, it's easy for them to accidentally sell the drinks to minors, Simmons said. That's why stores must educate their employees.

The Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control provides optional monthly training programs that include information about the drinks and has distributed posters about them. The easiest way to differentiate alcoholic energy drinks from the nonalcoholic versions is the nutrition label, Simmons said. The alcoholic versions don't have one.

At 7-Eleven, employees are trained to ask for identification from anyone purchasing alcohol who appears to be younger than 30, spokeswoman Margaret Chabris said. The company also offers a computerized training program, although it doesn't provide specific information about alcoholic energy drinks, she said.

"The product development of companies is constantly morphing and innovating, so we like to leave some room for new products," she said. But "anything that includes alcohol is covered by the training program."

There's also a larger issue of the potential health risks associated with combining stimulants such as caffeine, ginseng and guarana with alcohol, Simmons said.

Studies have shown that stimulants in alcoholic beverages don't curb the effects of drinking. Rather, they make drinkers more alert and increase the likelihood that they will think they're sober enough to drive or continue drinking, Simmons said.

"You're wide awake," he said. "It gives you the feeling that you're not drunk."

Worried about the safety of caffeinated alcoholic beverages, the Food and Drug Administration issued letters to their manufacturers in November demanding information about their safety. It has threatened to ban their products. Some companies have already elected to stop making the drinks, including Anheuser-Busch and MillerCoors. The owner of the company that makes Joose, United Brands Co., did not return a phone call seeking comment.

Some states, such as California, have proposed banning alcoholic energy drinks, but Virginia isn't there yet, Simmons said. Eventually, he said, he'd like to see them taken off the shelves. Until then, he's traveling the state educating people about the beverages. He's presented at PTA meetings, town hall forums and colleges.

"I'm finding that not just parents but officers, school resource officers and neighborhood people are all shocked that these drinks are out there," he said. "They had no idea."

 Pilot researchers Maureen Watts and Jakon Hays contributed to this report.

Kathy Adams, (757) 222-5155, kathy.adams@pilotonline.com