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Recovery High students bristle at sales of 'Cocaine' energy drink

By Cate Lecuyer
Staff writer
Published: June 5, 2008

BEVERLY — For students at Recovery High School, the word cocaine conjures images of a powdery, white, illegal drug that has ruined too many of their lives.

So they were surprised to find out it's also the name of an energy drink sold at the Lucky 7 on Cabot Street, just down the street from their school, which educates kids recovering from drug and alcohol addictions.

They were appalled by the bright red posters in the front windows of the convenience store with the word "cocaine" written in white, shaky letters. Smaller words clarified the ad was for a "Red Hot Cold Drink" known as "the legal alternative."

"Cocaine destroys lives all the time," senior Grace Norton said. "It's diminishing how serious it is."

There is a warning on the can that reads: "This message is for the people who are too stupid to recognize the obvious. This product does not contain the drug cocaine (duh). This product is not intended to be anything more than an energy drink."

It contains 280 mg of caffeine per serving, more than three times as much as Red Bull.

Recovery students are also upset it's being sold so close to Briscoe Middle School. The name of the drink, and especially the advertisements, desensitizes people to the serious risks associated with cocaine, senior Natasha Dube said. It sends the message that cocaine is acceptable, she said, and young people will be curious to try both the energy drink and the illegal drug.

"The next time they hear the word cocaine, they're going to think it's not a big deal," Dube said.

Top seller

Lucky 7 owners Jagdish and Lata Rana started selling the energy drinks at the beginning of May and still sell them, although they took the signs down after getting a complaint. Jagdish said kids often stop in to buy chips and candy after school, but said they don't buy any of the energy drinks. Although the drinks are marketed to teenagers, Jagdish said he thinks they're more popular with middle-aged men.

And, he said, the product lives up to its claim as "a top seller," which is how it was being promoted by J. Polep Distribution Services during a recent trade show in Springfield.

The Ranas went to their first trade show in April and saw a large crowd of people around the Cocaine booth. Lata said customers had asked her about the drink a year ago, and she hadn't heard of it. But after seeing it at the trade show, they decided to buy five cases and put the 120 drinks on the shelves.

"We got the delivery on Wednesday, and on Saturday we sold out," Jagdish said.

Lata said she and her husband have run the convenience store for four years and try to supply what their customers want. The name of the energy drink doesn't bother her.

"I don't think about the name, I think about the energy drink," she said. "And people are looking for energy drinks."

Students at Recovery High School are not the only ones with concerns. The state of Texas banned the drink from its shelves in May 2007 — around the same time the FDA recalled the drink, saying Redux Beverages, based in Las Vegas, was marketing it as a drug.

"They sort of stretched that guideline to make us fall under it," said Redux President and founder Jamey Kirby. He relaunched the product in February, and it now includes the warning on the can.

"We knew we were going to get negative press when we named the product," Kirby said.

Banking on publicity

Indeed, the publicity started with a story in The New York Post, and soon the product was featured on major television news networks. Kirby made guest appearances on talk shows like "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno," "The View" and "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart."

Redux's 15- to 25-year-old target demographic drank it up, so to speak.

"We didn't have to spend really a dime on marketing," Kirby said.

On www.drinkcocaine.com, teenagers uploaded videos, posted pictures, wrote on the chat sites and blogs, and propelled the drink into pop culture. Over the last 30 years, the drug cocaine has also become a sort of rock 'n' roll "glamour drug" for celebrities, Kirby said, so rather than market the drink to a sports crowd, it's being used to sponsor bands and promote shows.

Although it was off the market for eight months, Kirby said as soon as his company reintroduced it in February, sales picked up where they left off.

"If you put the drink in the stores, it sells," Kirby said. "If people wouldn't drink it, we wouldn't make it."

Anti-drug?

In terms of a social responsibility, Kirby said he considers the energy drink part of a growing anti-drug campaign. Some of the videos on both the Web site and the company's MySpace page feature teenagers choosing the energy drink Cocaine instead of actual cocaine.

"The more you build something up to be something bad, the more you're going to find rebellion," Kirby said. Teaching children to be afraid of drugs makes them more likely to try them, he asserts.

"Let's make it not such a big deal," he said. "Let's take the intrigue out of it."

But that's exactly the problem, said Recovery High School senior Caille Souza.

"We're trying to tell kids how bad it is, and then there's all this advertising right there," she said. It glorifies cocaine and piques people's curiosity to try the energy drink, and then the drug, students said.

"It's such a slap in the face," Norton said.

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