Why the Buzz?

Four Loko, should we ban it?

For those of you who aren’t aware, it’s the equivalent of four beers and a strong cup of coffee in a single 24 oz can.

It’s raised many questions from various news outlets, many of which focused on the dangers, recommended better critical thinking skills for our kids, and whether or not we should try to enforce alcohol limits on eighteen to twenty-one year olds.

My question is, what has made the need for checking out of life and into an altered state of consciousness so popular (or in the minds of some of the younger folks, so necessary)? Whether it was weed or microdot; uppers or downers; whiskey, woman, or song, each generation found its way to check-out.

How much social pressure contributes to the situation? Is it too much conformity and too little responsibility? Or has the latest generation had the line between reality and media blurred too much, leaving nothing but a numb average and a need for a Four Loko to jolt out of it?

Were they so prevalent and so dangerous a hundred years ago? What are the right questions that society as a whole should be asking and seeking the answers to? Instead of outright banning drinks and expecting the problem to evaporate, we need to dig deeper into the issue and learn why the need for the fix is getting so out of control. It might not be an isolated of an issue as it seems and it could be indicative of something bigger.