Company comes up dry on selling

    Maine and 10 other states recently put a halt to Anheuser-Busch’s marketing of two drinks to youngsters.
    The recent agreement by the alcoholic beverage firm not to continue to produce products mixing malt beverages and caffeine should reduce at least one of the lures for teens to drink.  The St. Louis-based brewing company, the nation’s largest, said it would reformulate two of its “young adult” products, Bud Extra and Tilt.
    The alcoholic drinks, also containing ginseng and guarana, were berry-flavored, leading some critics to give them the label of “alcopops.” They were intended to capitalize on the popularity of caffeine-loaded “energy drinks” such as Red Bull, but with the added effect of alcohol. But the attorneys general of nearly a dozen states sued Anheuser-Busch for marketing the drinks to minors and misstating its products’ health effects.
    Maine Attorney General Steven Rowe, whose office led the effort, said studies had shown that drinkers suffered higher rates of injury and needed more medical treatment when they mixed caffeine with alcohol. Rowe had joined with 10 other attorneys general who criticized the firm’s use of the Internet to market the drinks in ways that appealed to people under the legal drinking age of 21.
    The commercials included music downloads, unverified claims about the supposed health effects of the drinks’ herbal ingredients, and slogans such as “You can sleep when you’re 30” and “You’ll last longer than most Hollywood marriages.”
    Under the settlement announced at the end of June, Anheuser-Busch will remove the caffeine from the drinks and alter its marketing practices. Rowe and the other attorneys general deserve credit for their high-energy effort to nip this campaign in the Bud.
    This is a reprint of an article written and published on June 29, 2008 by Blethen Maine Newspapers. This article was brought to you by Aroostook Substance Abuse Prevention. For more information about ASAP and its prevention efforts contact Clare Desrosiers, project director at 521-2408 or visit www.asapcoalition.com.