Energy drinks: a dangerous, edgy buzz?

ENERGY drinks are the target of many complaints: too much sugar, too much caffeine and too many herbal extracts with dubious claims. Now, researchers say the drinks may lead to drug abuse.

In a paper published online last month in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence, Roland Griffiths of Johns Hopkins' School of Medicine in Baltimore and his coauthors highlighted the risks of consuming too much caffeine via energy drinks, including caffeine toxicity and dependence. Last week, Griffiths also sent a letter, signed by 97 other experts in addiction and drug abuse policy, to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration calling for federal regulation of the labeling and content of energy drinks.

Griffiths and co-signers are not just worried about the risk of overdosing on caffeine. They also fear that the beverages -- with names such as Fixx and Buzzwater -- and a marketing strategy that plays on an edgy, even illicit image, may make them "gateway" products.

Gateway is used to describe a drug such as marijuana -- or in this case, a product -- that increases the risk of abusing harder drugs. (The association between smoking marijuana and later use of highly addictive drugs such as heroin or cocaine is a point of debate.) In other words, kids who start on energy drinks may progress to other substances -- cigarettes, alcohol, marijuana and stimulants.

So, how strong is the evidence linking energy drinks to subsequent substance abuse? Data are scant, but some studies have shown higher rates of heavy alcohol consumption and recreational drug use. Researchers are particularly concerned about abuse of prescription stimulants such as Ritalin and Adderall, used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

In a study published in March in the Journal of American College Health, 795 college students answered questions about energy drink consumption, drug use and other risky behaviors. Those students who drank at least six energy drinks a month were three times more likely to have smoked cigarettes, abused prescription drugs and been in serious physical fights. They were two times more likely to have smoked marijuana and had alcohol-related problems such as hangovers and blackouts.

"Most energy drink consumers don't ever go on to problem drinking or illicit drugs use," says study author Kathleen Miller, a sociologist at the Research Institute on Addictions at the University at Buffalo in New York. But the odds are higher, she says.